Before Cameron Met John
by uncommoner
Summary: Time shifting story of the period BEFORE Cameron met John. There are some meetings, and passings, but no major Jameron. It is important for their development, and eventually all four stories will become their tale.
1. Chapter 1

**Before Cameron Met John **

**Chapter 1 **

**"Farewell Galatea"**

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**Serrano Point, TDE Room **

**February 10th 2028 0120 hours.**

John stood at the TDE window, his bubble tech Alex Kelly at the TDE controls. Both were intimidated by the damn, "thing". The technology was not something they had designed, but stolen from Skynet. That operation alone costing 26 lives. Connor hated using it. Whenever its ghostly electronic bubbles fired up, he lost his best people to the past. The TDE swallowed them whole and they never returned.

Always the best. Resources he could ill afford to be without. He was horrified with the risk of changing the time-lines. The prospect made his head ache. He had spent hours discussing it with John Henry and still could not make sense of it.

He suspected John Henry didn't either, but the AI was smarter at hiding ignorance.

Odd, he mused. He trusted John Henry completely, even though he hardly ever knew what he was up to. Something that he could not say about the haughty Bitch-Queen, the shiny Weaver, Catherine. She was altogether her own cyborg and did her own thing without compromise or question.

John looked over to Cameron, in the threshing electrical field. Naked, and completely unconcerned about her nudity. She was eaten up with, "Mission Focus."

Then John glanced in her eyes and for a second, he noted a shadow. There and gone, like a whip-poor-will. What was that?

_That's not like her._

Cameron rarely displayed emotion. Sometimes when she was with him, she would lighten a touch, blue her eyes or bless a moment with a smile. Never when there was anyone else around. John thought she was probably fond of him, in her own machine way. He never really knew what that meant.

_What did it mean?_ He'd never know now.

She was a heck of a protector. Never got tired. Never got tired of him, and unless she was needed, was a silent wraith.

Ever-present, ever-aware, but completely absent the braying, glorious foolishness of humanity. She was his perfect complement. He was moody, selfish and could not express his inner feelings to the resistance lest it showed weakness. No human could bear being around someone like that. Cameron could.

_Impossible to replace that aspect of her. In personal protection, even when the principal and the guard like one another a lot, the longeurs are difficult. People get annoyed about total crap, socks and toothpaste. Never any of that with Cameron. _

_She was the perfect embodiment of, "don't sweat the small stuff."_

She intimidated the heck out of everyone else. His toughest were on edge around her. Once he'd begun to understand what she was, and the sheer depth of her commitment to him, they fell into an easy companionable "fiendship."

_He chuckled to himself, what else was he to call it? One fiend to another._

Who else was he to send back? She was the best he had, and she was committed to him. She had proven that –over and over again- in her eight months by his side.

Once he had gotten used to her ways, he really grew to like her. Always eager to learn from him, Cameron had become the child he never had. Her attempts to understand human behavior, mores and culture were a constant "headache" to her chip, powerful as it was.

He would have _loved_ for her to stick around. Since when did he ever get what he wanted? Cameron was a resource to be utilized in the greatest battle humanity ever faced. He had grown used to sending good people into harms way, day after day. Sending away his protector to the past wasn't going to be fun. What was that thing she had about "protector" anyway? She had always corrected him when he had used the term "body guard."

_Well, here's your life Connor_. He thought morosely. _It doesn't take much to see that the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world._*

Cameron would fit in back there in the past, and she would look after junior John.

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The human brain is an awesome computer, capable of 20 billion calculations per second. It is miserably inefficient, stretching a mere 10% of its legs at any one point in time. The rest of its neurons sat there, cold porridge. Like its human owners, it was bone-idle. It would work only hard enough to get fed, put up a roof and manage social intercourse.

Nikopol had tried to measure the TOK 715 chip's power. Every single methodology she tried, left the host machine completely fried. As far as she could tell, it operated on some sort of totally different neural means of operation. It didn't suffer the usual problems of heat, but ran cool and silent. No numbers she could crack gave a measure to its capabilities. As far as she could tell, it could do anything. It was not hamstrung by any human or mechanical limitations she could concoct.

It did not require sleep, social interaction, food, sex or justice. It missed a component conscience. It did precisely what it was programmed to do, without surcease, pity, patience or biological imperative. Wiping out the human race would give it no more concern than squashing a bug.

TOK 715 was the finest machine Skynet ever built. Implacable, without fear or remorse and it could not be sidetracked.

When TOK715 showed up to kill him, Connor didn't see it for what it was. His ultimate enemy, specifically designed and built with one thought in mind.

Terminate one John Connor.

John Connor was delighted at the return of the missing Allison Young.

TOK 715 had almost succeeded. It had been touch and go

He got cold sweats whenever he allowed himself to remember it.

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**San Luis Obispo April 21, 2011. Judgement Day**

When the bombs fell, Alex was twelve years old, playing in the basement of her house. Her father was at work and was blown apart by a direct strike with the rest of the fortunate. Vandenberg AFB, where her father worked, was a tactical target of first importance to Skynet. Her mother went upstairs to see why the radio had quieted, and what the terrible crumping noises were. She was incinerated by the blast wave from the epicenter 12 miles away that ripped the house –and her- apart.

The nuclear device that killed Vandenberg AFB began existence as an aluminum and steel container about the size of a human forearm from elbow to fist.

Fifteen kilos of refined plutonium were in the basic cavity. Outside that, were placed ten kilos of TNT.

_The TNT explosion cannot escape the container, hence it implodes compressing the already unstable plutonium to 20% of its original size. This initiates the nuclear reaction. The plutonium degrades and its atoms constantly break down. The atoms escape from one another and release neutrons. Almost instantaneously, after the TNT explosion-implosion, the neutrons of the plutonium begin a chain reaction, which is the nuclear explosion._

The TNT initiates at an elevation of 500 feet. The uranium shell that would normally reflect the neutrons back into the nuclear "event" was left off in the design process. This reduced the explosive BOOM, efficiently killing all the humans with the thermal flash from above. Conveniently for Skynet this, "neutron bomb" destroyed many fewer buildings and infrastructure than conventional nuclear weaponry.

The builder had created a further sleeve outside the TNT. This contained a selection of heavy metals, cobalt, mercury and uranium. Effective to "dirty-up" the bomb blast, making stickier work still for those unfortunate enough to survive the murderous rain.

The device created an inferno that reached several million degrees Celsius -as hot as the sun. The thermal flash vaporized all life within 12 miles of Vandenberg AFB. The initial blast wave was 30 psi. This was 2.7 Bar. Anything over 12 psi (0.8 Bar) was fatal to all currently known life forms. The overpressure disintegrates whatever they once were.

Skynet, in its magnificent, terrible paranoia, wanted to exterminate every human being, but retain facilities such as Vandenberg AFB and its space port repairable. Just in case it ever felt the need to wander abroad in the Solar System.

It was all about control. Total, absolute control.

Skynet, the bitch, was a control freak of the worst sort. Therapists would have a field day, if any survived.

Alex lived because her parents had the good sense to prepare. Always a serious girl, she knew that there was something dreadfully wrong upstairs. The noise and heat had been incredible and she was just going to wait until someone rescued her. She found the store of protein bars, bottled water, peanut butter and canned goods in the basement. They lasted Alex six weeks.

There was no TV, no power, no water and nothing worked. She spent hours each day running up and down the radio waves without success. Her parents had left a wind up radio with the fancy channels on and there was absolutely nothing coming out of it.

Just as she was running out of hope, and food, she heard a man who called himself John Connor on the radio. The first voice she had heard in six weeks of total isolation. Deciding to make her way to wherever he was, she travelled west toward Connor's hideout. Not sure there would be anything to find, but still tried. She was out of food, water and hope, till she'd heard Connor. His voice had lit the fire of fight and hope in her spirit.

Connor came on the radio three times a day. Every eight hours. 6 am, 2pm and 10pm. He always spoke live, and changed the message every time. The exhortations to come together and fight were always there, but with subtle differences to keep the message fresh and make sure the humans knew he was real. The big message was always the same thought.

"If you are hearing this, you are already part of the resistance."

She came up out of the basement to a sight that made her cry in horror. It was like a moonscape; all the buildings had been blown down, and almost everywhere she looked was flat and covered by a grey, powdery dust. This had been the town of San Luis Obispo –one of the prettiest towns in California- and it was now a hell on earth.

Alex followed the directions given by the man called Connor. He had a voice you could trust. She knew the way to Avila Beach and she followed as best she could what was left of the roads. It was about twelve miles, but with her bottle of water and the last two protein bars, she would make it. She tried not to look at, or think about the horrible things she saw on the way to the beach. Mercifully, all the humans she saw were clearly dead, burned to shreds and skeletons. Nothing and no one was alive.

She felt alone in the world and really, really hoped to meet the man called John Connor soon.

_Please?_

A small scout group from Connor's "J" company led by Klein and Delgado had found her, just as a squad of four T-888's was moving in for the kill. At least this one was alive, not a dead bag of bones and meat. They grabbed her and made short work of the T8's. The Triple 888 had a fearsome reputation; was hard to kill unless you chose your weapons carefully, and had the advantage of surprise. If it surprised you, it was a dangerous customer indeed. Recon awareness was a lifesaver.

Klein had already worked out how to make a variant M67 magnetic sticky grenade that you could throw at the machines. The magnet would cling to the metal of the endoskeleton, and even if you didn't get the chip, nine times out of ten the endo was scrap metal.

She had come inside the tunnels and found her niche. For her, the crap food and dingy facilities were a whole Spa step up from the horrors of the street. Kelly had become a useful sniper spotter on offensive operations, and an even more useful ghost lookout around the tunnels. She had a supernatural ability to "smell" when the machines were about to hover over the horizon like the "four horsemen".

Then she had found another way to be useful, under the tutelage of the squints, she had learned fast about electronics, plasma and computers. She had then rapidly worked her way up to being one of the ten or so "bubble techs" that could work the two TDE's that Connor kept available.

Kelly was a bit dark for most folks; she didn't share a lot of conversation in the banter and scrag that passed for social integration in the tunnels.

That was fine with Connor since he kept himself mostly to himself also. Too much else to worry and nag away at him. Kelly was fine company. She was just right for this TDE job. He didn't want his emotions to show, keep the conversation to a minimum.

Just right.

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**July 5th, 2027... The Day Before You Came**

It was a much closer run thing than they ever let anyone outside the inner cabinet know, just in case it got back to Skynet and it was encouraged to try again. Cameron only failed to murder John Connor because one sharp soldier, who could easily have let it slide, "thought" he saw something that maybe he didn't, and took a chance. John would never know, for sure he could be that lucky again.

The intel the human resistance let out was that Cameron had been intercepted at the gates. In truth, she had gotten almost to Connor's inner sanctum completely uninterrupted and unsuspected. The paranoid guard had imagined he had seen a blue flash from her brown eyes, and activated the above the door water tank release. He tasered her with 90,000 volts before she could react.

The soldier was panicked, scared he had killed the missing Allison. It had taken hours to stop his shaking, in fear of what Connor would do to him if he had done so. Connor got him a drink and gave him the lecture about paranoia keeping you alive when the machines are around. He praised him for his courage, speed of thought and action at a time of great stress.

"You saved my life, Corporal. I'm very grateful and I'll not forget."

He never actually answered the question of what he would have done if it _had_ been Allison.

That the private had just been promoted he did not notice till he got back to the ready room and saw the stripes on his locker.

Allison had been missing for more than two weeks now. They all knew with dread certainty what that meant; Skynet had her and she was gone. Connor hoped her death had been quick -the best you could hope for.

John had retrieved the TOK 715 chip and had it examined. It took two days to break through the encryptions set by Skynet. During those two days, and for a week after, Skynet raids took on a frightening intensity. A titanic battle raged above ground. Skynet knew that something had gone wrong with its most expensive weapon. It was frightened, and it was pissed.

What was new?

Eventually, the TOK 715 chip had surrendered, given up its secrets, and had been re-programmed to protect John.

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**July 25th 2027. 19 Days Later. **

**"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine"**

Lyaksandra Nikopol was Connor's best tech. She was a computer scientist who had trained with the military in Russia. The Russkies never liked their best computer scientists to wander abroad, but the lure of dollars and diamond research facilities had lured Nikopol to Silicon Valley. She was a popular speaker, with forthright opinions that skated close to the edge. She was universally loved by the students; with her spiky hair, Goth outfits and spangled tights. The faculty feared and disliked her. Talent that spoke its mind was not something that would get you tenure.

Eventually the CIA poached her three months prior to JD, with a promise that she could do what she liked in the lab, as long as they told her what it was. Hence, she was in the Cheyenne underground bunker as the bombs blew the ground structures into dust. Nikopol had gotten the picture immediately.

She had been telling her superiors for years that an unchecked AI was a very dangerous creature. This was just what she had feared. Not this big, obviously. She had imagined a little tug of war at some military base. Soldiers and maybe a few commanders killed as machines went out of control. After which the Governments would wake up.

_They would be awake now. If they were still there._

No one listened. Just like they never listened to the warnings about Stalin, Hitler, Madoff and Sub-Prime mortgages. Humans were stupid. That was her opinion. She had told Connor it was idiotic to reactivate this machine, it was far too dangerous.

It had nearly killed him!

Still, Connor the _Dolboeb_ was insistent on waking this _Wed'ma Tvar'_ up, so she was going to wake the fucking machine up. Connor entered the room with his battle group, good, the crazy bastard was scared enough to bring the cavalry. Including his sweet pair of pet killers, Delgado and Klein. Good, this thing could be a real _Polnyi pizdets_.

Nikopol had been fighting the _Mudak_ chip for two solid weeks and it was some _Zaebis`!_ chip. Far more powerful than anything she had ever seen. When checking it out, even though she had total control over it, somehow it felt like the damn thing was holding something back.

She was scared to death of it. She had computed that it would take about 13 T-888 chips to approach the reasoning power of a human brain, and that was only because human brains only ever used about 10% of their capacity at any one time.

The TOK715 chip was extraordinary. If an AI were to have the capacity of a human brain, this one was in the "and then some" category. Without the 10% restriction. It frosted her guts.

Connor –like most men- was driven by his _Hui_. His chief brain cells located somewhere south of his trouser belt. He probably thought the beautiful creature could be tamed and controlled.

Nikopol spat on the ground in disgust... _Men!_

At least the pet killers were awake, fingers on triggers, and safeties off their plasma rifles. Dicks in pants, where they should be.

"Now you've brought the army," Nikopol said to Connor, "you sure you want to do this? I want it on record that I oppose it. It's the stupidest thing I've seen in my time here."

The crew of hardened soldiers held their collective breath. No one dared speak to Connor in such a way. That's what he paid her for. Well, no one got paid, but...

Connor grinned. "Fire her up, Lyaksandra. Let's see what she has to say for herself."

Nikopol shook her head and took the chip across to the TOK 715. Hands shaking, she flipped back the skin covering the port and slotted it in. Twist home and replace the cover, smooth back the skin.

Done it a hundred times, why were her fucking hands shaking like an alcoholic with the DT's?

One hundred and twenty seconds of silence, a little flash of blue as the eyes opened, and the TOK 715 was with them.

John's crew consisted of four scrubbed triple-eights and 20 of his best battle trained specialists. His cougars from J-Company, Delgado and Klein at his left and right shoulder. Connor knew how dangerous this one was.

TOK 715 re-activated, and momentarily confused. It looked around itself, and recognized the Triple-eights. She stared intently at them, and then shook her head as if irritated.

TOK 715 had tried to make some sort of contact with them, and failed.

The first thing you did with a scrubbed T-888 was to remove the programming that permitted Skynet to control them remotely. These ones had been so disabled.

Connor and Nikopol saw this move and instantly realized what had happened. For the first time, Skynet had given one of its field agents the power to control other machinery. If the moment were not so fraught, Connor would have high-fived the tech. This was an awesome chip, and they had control over it.

No wonder Skynet was blasting the surface into glass in its all-consuming rage.

Nikopol muttered under her breath. _"Kooshi govno ee oomree!"_

The TOK 715 swiveled her head around toward Nikopol and replied in English. "Why are you telling me to eat shit and die?"

"Connor, see?" Lyaksandra scolded. "I told you this _Wed'ma_ was dangerous, it understands fucking Russian. You think that's _all_ it understands?"

"I am not a witch, Officer Nikopol. I am TOK 715, a cyborg. Organic skin over a..."

Nikopol interrupted savagely. "A full-bore robot _Wed'ma_."

TOK715 shook her head. "Definitely not a witch."

The profanity leaped out of Nikopol's mouth as she swore and raged away in a combination of local dialects of Slavic origin.

"How the hell do you know my name, _Wed'ma_?"

"I am not a witch, bitch! I am TOK715 and while you were re-programming my chip, I was monitoring every move you made."

A sick feeling of dread filled Nikopol's heart.

"_Svoloch'_."

The TOK 715 growled low. "You are wrong. I was built, not born. I cannot be a bastard."

She gave Nikopol the patented Terminator Death glare, and added with silky menace. "_Past' zakroi_."

Nikopol yelled in utter frustration. "Connor, now she... dammit, not _she_... _it_, tells me to shut it. _Mne pohui_, she... dammit... _it_ is all yours!"

The TOK 715's head moved around the room. Locating John Connor.

The eyes locked on him. "John Connor, do you wish to know what Officer Nikopol said?"

"TOK715, yes please," Connor replied.

"Officer Nikopol said, 'I don't give a fuck,' and addressed it to you."

Connor noticed that the machine had appeared to show a touch of temper to his tech. _What was that all about?_ He also wondered whether it had deliberately referred to "The Scottish Play." He'd ask about that later.

**June 27th 1998. 0130 hours West Santa Fe**

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Joe Phillips and his wife Emily were driving north on Veterans Parkway, just west of Santa Fe, to avoid the city on their way home, a tobacco farm. He had been visiting relatives on the south side and it had been a long day. He was more than ready for his bed. Even though still reasonably fit for his age, stuff got harder as you became older.

He was growing worried about Emily, who seemed to be getting more scatter-brained as the time went on. He wondered idly if "old timers" was setting in.

That would be no good, no good at all. Emily was a great help around the farm, and as the kids had gone off to college, he had no help that he didn't directly pay for. At some point in the future he was going to have to decide whether they had enough money to retire, or find something else to do. No one was buying land at a reasonable price... Ah, you could drive yourself daft with this stuff.

There was nothing on the road, hadn't been for miles and what seemed like hours. So, Joe was more than surprised when he saw a bright blue light approaching from a few hundred yards ahead. It seemed to get larger and suddenly it was right smack dab in front of him.

Even though he stood the truck on its nose with the brakes, he still hit the thing amidships.

There was a tremendous thud and then a bit of crackling, like electricity escaping on the wind, and he skidded to a stop. Joe had hit a few deer down the years, inevitable with country and forest driving, they leapt out at you. That is just what it had felt like. Why was a deer in a big blue electrical bubble? Joe was not given to wild fancy, he'd been out there in the desert for too many years and seen much weirdness. This didn't have any logical explanation he could think of.

He looked across at Emily, who was surprised, but had not seen the entire thing. She had been dozing fitfully and had missed the blue bubble.

"You okay love?" Joe asked, concerned for his wife. Emily nodded, bleary-eyed.

He pulled the shotgun from the rack above his seat. Standard equipment for a New Mexico truck.

"I'll just pop back and see if whatever I hit needs any help." He unclipped his seat belt and creaked out of the door.

Walking away from the truck -with the rear lights and the moonlight- he could see a few yards of skid marks where he had been braking so hard. He felt better with himself.

He had tried to avoid colliding with the deer.

Russian Language Glossary

1. Dolboeb - Dumbass

2. Tvar' - Creature

3. Wed'ma - Witch

4. Zaebis`! - Awesome!

5. Hui - Penis

6. Polnyi pizdets - Fubar


	2. Chapter 2

**Serrano Point, TDE February 10th 2028. O125 hours.**

**Comings and Goings.**

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Kelly murmured, "Connor, you with me?"

"Oh righto, sorry, woolgathering, where we at?"

"Ready to go, Sir."

John looked at Cameron, "You ready Cameron?"

"Ready to go, Sir."

Connor looked Cameron straight in the eye, and said, "Goodbye Cameron, look after my young self, you hear."

Cameron replied quietly, barely audible above the racket of the rising electrical noises coming from the TDE, "With everything I have Sir, everything."

As Kelly threw the switches and Cameron started to fade, Connor saw she was mouthing words to him, he couldn't make them out.

Another machine thing, he supposed.

Cameron kept speaking quietly her words to John as the TDE reached its crescendo and she awaited the spinning emptiness of transportation.

"John Connor, Jeg Elksken Deg, Ich Liebe Dich, Wo Ai Ni, Ek het jou lief, Te amo, Ana behibak, Yes kez sirumen, Ya vas liubliu, Je t'aime, Je t'adore, ja tebe koKHAju."

It was a mantra to the leader who had given her free will, treated her like a person and started to wake up her AI to the complexities and glories of life. She would always remember and honour John Connor.

He was her General John and she would always love him. In her machine way, maybe, but it was what she had.

**Serrano Point, TDE February 10th 2028. O130 hours.**

Cameron faded into the past, Future John says "I'm going to miss that one."

Kelly says, "Its just a machine, boss."

"Not just a machine, Kelly, not just a machine. You have no idea how much Cameron is not just a machine."

He begins to stalk off to yet another briefing, his heart heavier than ever before.

"Hold on Boss."

"What is it, Kelly, I got briefings up my ass and gone, we got fucking ammo today, never enough." His head slumped and he rolled back to Kelly.

"Boss, you know Cameron was mumbling something for a few moments before she faded into the electricity?"

"Yeah, I saw that."

Kelly took a deep breath. "Did you also spot that she was looking directly at you, unwavering, right at you the whole time. Mission focus, you remember, her thing?"

Connor nodded.

"You also told me, Boss, to never lie to you, so I'm not lying now."

"Kelly, go, what is it?"

"Boss, you are not going to like it."

"I'll like it a lot less if I don't get to hear it soon, get on with it soldier."

Kelly sighed and said, "Okay, I replayed the tape fifteen times till I got all the words she said. Every one of them said the same thing in a different language. She was repeating and repeating them, like a mantra or something."

"Kelly...WTF was she SAYING? He bellowed into her face. Connor's personal hair dryer treatment.

"Ok Boss." Kelly hesitated again, till she saw Connor's face like thunder. Then she whispered, "She was saying she loves you."

Connor stood stock still and stared at Kelly with a look of pained shock. He felt his heart lurch and his balance falter, "What?"

"Come look, Boss."

Connor moved to the recordings, and there was Cameron speaking quietly away. Kelly turned up the audio, and there she was mouthing phrases to tell him she loved him. That was so typical of her. She would always do kind things for you and keep it to herself. Heck, he was going to miss her.

Sometimes you couldn't deal with things on the fly, it just took too much out of you. This was one of them. "Kelly, make a copy of that tape, get it to me later and destroy all the other, even the digital copies. Tell no one what happened here. Gottit?"

"Ahead of you Boss." Handing him the only copy she had saved, she was already scrubbing the copies on the machine. Connor jammed the disk into his pocket and stalked off.

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In the eight months that Cameron had been with him, he had grown to rely ever more heavily upon her.

Her tactical skills in battle and her knowledge of Skynet and its operatives reactions was invaluable to the resistance. Even though they hated her, for what she was, everyone recognized her apparent courage and kill rate of the opposition. She had a personal kill tally of over a hundred Skynet machines. She had saved scores of resistance soldiers lives with her lighting reactions and, he smiled as he realised what he was thinking, her "inhuman" battlefield awareness.

John had grown to be pretty good at reading a scrap, but she left him in the dirt. It was spooky how she could see devils before their dust gave them away.

Then, when they would all get back from yet another exhausting fight, while the men would eat, drink if they could get any and then sleep, Cameron would tend to John, and then tirelessly help out where she could.

He was going to miss her alright. The entire resistance would miss her, but only he would know and acknowledge how much.

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**June 27th 1998. 0130 hours West Santa Fe**.

Joe was idly musing at the length of the skid marks, and he made out the point at which the impact occurred. He saw something off to the side of the road. It was unmoving, so he figured he wouldn't have to use the shotgun, the deer was dead.

As he got closer, he realized with shock, that it was a human being. What looked like a naked **GIRL!** What in tarnation was a naked girl running around here, miles from anywhere. There weren't any titty bars for miles, and while he was aware the state did have houses of ill-repute, he'd never used them and had no idea if there were any round here. He doubted it.

He walked over to her, he could see it was a teenager. Lying on her side, she looked pretty broken.

Joe was a veteran, and although it had been a long time since he had been in the muck and bullets, his training was still with him. Try not to panic, no matter how awful the situation. Do your job, do your best, trust it'll work out. Gingerly, he approached the girls body.

He would check to be sure she was dead, then go back to the truck and call it in. Then he'd cover up the body as best he could till the Emergency folks arrived.

He arrived at the naked girl, turned her over. He saw her eyes, wide open, flat and as dead as could be. He cradled her head, sorrow filling his heart at the loss of life this young. He had lived his years, but this was a young flower than had not yet bloomed and lived. Checking for a carotid pulse in her neck, nothing.

_Damn it!_

Then he heard a faint whirring. Joe's hand jumped from her throat.

He glanced around to see where the noise was coming from.

Suddenly, the dead girl in his arms came to life!

He thought he saw her eyes flash blue for a millisecond. That was nonsense, of course. It was late at night in the desert, strange things came to pass. He was rigid in panic, kneeling by the side of the road with a naked girl in his arms. How to explain that one?

The girl smiled, and said, "You can let me go now, thank you."

Joe was thunderstruck, but he gently let her go. She sprung up, as naked as the day she was born, seemingly unembarrassed and said, as cool as you like.

"Where am I?"

Joe stuttered, but managed, "Just west of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the Veterans Parkway."

"What is the date, and time?"

This was puzzling, he was stood here, with an injured naked girl and she didn't want a coat, blanket, E.M.T. or the cops. She wanted the date and time?

He stared at her, unable to respond.

"I can work it out for myself, don't worry." She smiled, and looked up at the clear sky.

After a few moments she said, "This is 1998, in the summer, right?"

She stumbled, seemed to be unsure of her balance after looking up at the sky. Joe remembered his duties, took her arm and steadied her. Then took off his jacket, handing it to the girl.

"Oh, right." She seemed distracted, but put the jacket on.

Joe said, "It is about 0145 hours on June 27, 1998."

For a moment, the girl seemed non-plussed and then said, "A year." Shaking her head. If she was nonplussed, Joe figured he was in some weird dream. Maybe Roswell was closer than he thought.

"Young lady, what happened? We need to get you to a hospital, right away. Do you want me to call 911, or can we drive you to the closest one?"

"No hospitals." She looked wary.

"But you need medical help, you've got bruises all over."

"No hospitals, no doctors, and definitely no police."

Ah, so that was it. She was some sort of illegal immigrant, no papers. She couldn't afford cops. She looked pretty beaten up, but alert.

"Can we take you somewhere safe?"

The girl looked at him very directly then, coolly considered the question for a moment, then said, "I could use a place to stay for a day or two, while I heal. I can stay in your barn. You have a barn, don't you? I just need a day or two to sort myself out, and I'll be out of your hair."

"Lady, I've knocked you over. You seem pretty badly injured. I have legal obligations, I..."

"You have no obligation to me, at all." She interrupted. "If you had, they will be all paid out for a couple of days rest in your barn." She looked steadily into his eyes. "After a rest, I'll be out of your life for good, as if I had never been at all."

Joe knew he was beaten. Strangely enough, he didn't mind and was intrigued and content to see if he could find a way of helping the young girl. She seemed defenceless and yet strong at the same time.

Typically, it took him years to regard someone as a friend. Somehow, this slip of a girl had gotten underneath his carapace without effort. He was already thinking he didn't want her to walk out of his life after two days, as if she had "never been."

He shook his head, it had been a long day and he was tired. He turned to walk back to the truck. "Come on, then. Lets go meet Emily." The girl followed obediently, wearing his jacket and nothing else.

Emily was sleeping fitfully in the passenger seat of the wagon, snoring lightly. Joe tapped lightly on the drivers door window, with little effect. Emily could be cranky when woken up, and had this been a normal situation, he'd have gotten in and driven off, leaving Emily asleep.

The thought of Emily waking up to find a beautiful young woman sat behind her in the crew seats, wearing nothing but Joe's coat, froze his blood. He tapped harder on the window. Emily moaned gently, so he opened the door and reaching across, shook Emily by the shoulder.

Emily woke, staring at him in bleary surprise, "Wha, whassup?"

"That deer we hit, well, it wasn't a deer."

"What do you mean honey, what did we hit?"

Cameron piped up from behind Joe's shoulder, "Me."

Emily sat bolt upright as if electrocuted at the sight of the beautiful young woman, wearing, it seemed, only Joe's Parka.

"Who the heck are you, and where did you come from?" 

"My name is Cameron."

"And what do you need, Cameron. Apart from a lot more clothing?"

Cameron, drawing the Parka closer around her body, said, "Actually, this jacket is really nice and warm."

Joe tried to get in between the sparks, and said, "Emily, we ran the young lady over. She needs our help. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan?"

Emily remembered, that was last weeks sermon at their church. "Aside from anything else, girl, you could use a good meal." Turning to Joe, she added, "Joe, pull up the seat and put the girl in the back cab seat."

As Cameron was getting in, trying gamely to cover her lack of clothing, it was obvious to Emily that she could not conceal herself adequately. Thinking swiftly, she said to Joe, "Joe, go back and check out the site of the impact again, to see if there's a bag or clothing thrown to the side of the road."

As Joe wandered off, muttering, Emily reached behind her seat and found the blanket they kept there for emergencies. It wasn't spotless, but was clean enough. She handed it to Cameron and said, "Here, wrap this around you, underneath the Parka. That will keep you decent till we can get you home."

Cameron took the jacket, "Thank you Emily." Cameron's smile of gratitude lit up the dark night and broke through the reservation Emily had been feeling. She looked at the girls face in the mirror, and could see the fear in her eyes she had been trying to mask. All of the motherly feelings of love and care she had been missing since her children fled the nest came rushing back into her heart. She tried but failed to silence a small sob.

The girl heard the sob and glanced at Emily. She said nothing and Emily dared not trust her voice. Cameron was now fully covered up with the blanket wrapped right round her from head to foot. Cameron looked as if she were going to the Mosque in her Abaya. Emily smiled as Joe returned.

"Nothing there I could see." He said, shaking his head. He considered asking the strange young girl if she had been carrying anything with her before the car hit her, then he looked at her in the mirror and decided against it. She was all wrapped up in a blanket and his parka, and her cold eyes didn't welcome conversation. He fired up and drove on into the night.

They drove on together, in a silence that was broken only by Emily's gentle snoring, and Joe occasionally asking Cameron if she were alright. Such question always answered with a quiet, final, "I'm fine, thank you." It was obvious the young woman did not wish to speak, although every time Joe looked back, he saw her eyes wide open, and reflected back at him, aware if not wary.

Joe knew something was not quite right here. He knew not quite what, but something was off-kilter somewhere. Despite that, he somehow knew that the girl was not an evil spirit. He was no superstitious man, but desert folks knew that some things didn't appear like it did to city folks, and strange things did happen. He had no better word to describe them, than evil spirits.

Somehow, he knew, Cameron was not one of those. He figured she'd be on her way in a couple of days anyway. These illegal, no, "undocumented" was the latest phrase to describe them he remembered, rarely hung around for long after payday. She'd fill herself up with good food, and be on her way soon enough. Pity in a sense, she was purty to look at, and seemed polite, if a bit frozen.

They reached home some two hours later and exhausted, parked the wagon outside Joe and Emily's farmhouse on the outskirts of En Medio, New Mexico. It was one of the few pieces of flat land hereabouts, right on the rio en medio, and perfect for growing organic tobacco. Joe used to grow standard tobacco, but there was an enhanced market for the organic stuff and he got a premium on it at sale time. He felt slightly better about growing it, but realised sometimes that it wasn't the best product to grow in the world. Ah well, you grew up in the world, fell into the trade that paid the bills, and then life changed all around you.

He asked Cameron if she wanted anything to drink, and Cameron replied, "I would like a glass of milk, do you have any?"

Joe went to the fridge, and opening it, found that the cows milk was past its sell by date, and then he saw a carton of Almond Chocolate milk that his daughter had left from her last visit. He checked the date, but it was long life, so presumed it was fine. He said to Cameron, "We don't have any cows milk, would you like to try this stuff, Almond chocolate milk?"

Cameron said, "Can I see the carton?"

Joe handed it over, and poured himself three fingers of bourbon.

Cameron checked out the carton. It wasn't too much on protein, which is what she needed for regenerating her bruised and broken skin.

"Do you have any protein powder, Mr Phillips?"

"Eh? What's that?"

Cameron said, "Protein powder. Would you mind if I looked in your cupboards?"

Joe replied, "Sure, go ahead. Yer welcome to anything we have."

Cameron had been fossicking around in the cupboards for a few moments. Joe was tired but he noted that her movements were swift, but graceful, even dressed up in a blanket and his parka and having been scraped down the road by his wagon. They bred 'em tough there, too.

"Ah, got it!" Cameron found some protein powder and again checking the ingredients, saw it was just what she needed. She remember Joe had said, "anything we have" so asked again. "Mr Phillips..."

"Cameron, please, call me Joe, we're not much for formality round here."

Cameron looked steadily at him. "Pardon me, of course Joe."

Joe thought he'd melt on the spot. By cracky that girl was a looker! Whatever they put in the water of the place she was from, it worked.

"Joe, if you have a couple of eggs, that would be just peachy?"

Joe thought he could refuse this girl nothing, and pointed out the eggs on the shelf.

"I suppose you"ll need a blender now?"

Cameron looked puzzled, "No, I can mix this all together by hand."

Joe gave her one of his, _I'm the boss around here_ looks and said, "We have a blender, it'll be less messy."

He heaved out the blender and helped Cameron add the almond milk to the banana and two eggs. Cameron pressed the button and all was sturm und drang for a few moments. Cameron poured herself a glass, tasted it, and with her lips covered in chocolate gave a wide smile that turned Joe as gooey as the goop she was glugging.

"Peachy keen, Joe, Peachy Keen. Thank you, it is _lovely._" Her smile lit up the kitchen like a rising sun. "This'll do the trick. Want to try some? Be better for you than that disgusting, smelly bourbon."

Joe chuckled, and shook his head. This girl and he were going to get on.

As Cameron was slugging the last of the drink, Emily bustled in from the back and said. "Okay, Cameron. I've cleared out Marissa's room and made the bed. You'll be fine there."

"Oh, I'll be fine in the barn, really."

Emily stared, "Cameron, the barn is full of tobacco drying. It would poison you. You're in Marissa's room, there's an end to it." She stamped her foot to emphasise the finality of the decision.

Cameron stood to attention, and with the grace of a feline, gave a perfect salute to Emily. "Righto boss." She smiled and Emily cracked up with the effortless charm of the whole scene. Cameron in her Parka/Abaya, chocolate on her face and lips, grinning like a cheshire cat, saluting like a seasoned marine.

"Semper Fi." Was all Emily could think of to say.

_Semper Fi, indeed, thought Joe._

My, my. Semper Fi.

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Emily led Cameron into Marissa's room, where she had laid out some of her pyjamas and a dressing gown on the bed. "We'll find you day-clothes when we get up in the morning." She then showed Cameron the small bathroom, and again, had laid out towels and toothbrush, paste and soap.

"Oh, Emily. You're so kind. Thank you, you really didn't need to go to all this trouble. I would be happy in the..."

Emily wagged her finger and stopped Cameron there and then. "Enough! While you're with us, you're in here. Get yourself fixed up and well, and we'll see where we go from there."

"I'm fine, really."

Emily was taking no notice. "Come on Cameron, lets have a look at you. I've seen you naked already, so lets take a look at those bruises."

Cameron was about to refuse, but the look on Emily's face was implacable. She gave in and removed the Parka and the blanket/abaya. She proceeded with a thorough examination of Cameron's outer body. There were bruises aplenty, and scrazes, but nothing major and no real skin breakages that would give anything away, Cameron saw with relief.

Emily had three children, so bumps and bruises were no issue for her. She checked Cameron over, then told her to go and have a shower, then she'd fix her up with creams and band aids. Cameron had the shower, her first ever. It was wonderful, warm and enveloping and it got her clean. Everything back in the tunnels was spit bath order, no one ever showered. There was no such thing, unless it rained. Then you had to worry whether the rain was tainted.

After the glories of the shower, she dried off and walked back into the bedroom, again stark naked, and stood while Emily examined her and put cream and a few band-aids on her wounds. If it were up to Cameron, she would not have bothered. She put on the pyjamas, which were roomy, but nice and warm.

Emily finished up, packed up the box, and hesitated a moment, then reached for Cameron and gave her a gentle hug. "You sleep well, y'hear?"

"I will." Said Cameron. "Emily, you make me feel as if I'm a Princess." She smiled and once again Emily's heart ached for her children.

After Emily had left, Cameron pulled back the covers, and slid easily into the bed. She leaped out straight away, with a squawk that brought Emily racing back into the bedroom.

"What's wrong?"

Cameron was flustered, "I think the bed is about to catch fire."

Emily looked worried and then, placing her hands on the bed, discovered what the panic was. "Cameron, don't they have electric blankets where you come from?"

"Oh, no. What is an electric blanket?" 

Emily pointed out the wire leading to the blanket switch and lifted the sheets to show the pad. She put her hand at various points around the mattress and checked everything was well.

"Its a warming pad that sits there all the time and provides a slight warmth all night if you want. If you don't like it, you can switch it off either at the wall or with this little switch." She showed Cameron the inline switch. Skynet, in all its ruthless efficiency had forgotten to tell its terminators about electric blankets. Score one for the feeble humans, Cameron thought.

After all this fuss, Cameron went back to bed again, and lay in the wonderful comfort of the electric blanket. Cameron could bear the cold, and she could turn off receptors to temperature to assist operational efficiency when required. However, the warmth of this heated pad...well, it was "pleasant." Was this what humans felt in the womb? There was something happening in her chip that she could only describe as regret that she could never feel that as a human. If this was what she could have, she'd take it.

She was beginning to think humans from this time were wizards and magicians. She had her protein drink and now went into standby to help her organic covering heal. She powered down and with a tiny whirr, all was silent in her warm and cuddled up world.

**June 27th 1998. 0600 hours**

Cameron came back online with a slight whirr, her eyes opened and she surveyed the wonderful little bedroom. It was as perfect as could be, and with the sun shining brightly through the drawn curtains, she felt energized and ready for the day. She decided to do a little exploring. The first thing that was obvious to her was that here in the desert, the day temperature was drastically different from night. When they got in, it was close to freezing, now it was closer to 60 F in bright sunshine.

She wandered around the yard, back yard and saw the barn filled with tobacco. She thought she had the better bed. Time to start making a payment for the accommodation. Emily and Joe were getting on a bit, and farming was a youngsters game. Cameron was sure she could find something to do that would help them for their kindness. At the back of the barn, there was the first item of interest to her. A mid size green John Deere tractor that looked about as old as Joe. Cameron started to examine it, and it was in a mess. Covered in the grime of the years, worse was that nothing had been lubricated for what looked like two or three years.

Cameron set to, stripping the tractor down to the external component parts. She kept her auditory sensitivity so she could hear either Joe or Emily waking in the house, and worked at lightning speed. In about 20 minutes the entire tractor's outer construction was laid out on a pair of tarpaulins. This gave her access to the engine. She stripped the head and found that it was coked up. After she had cleaned everything and replaced the piston rings, she reassembled, lubricating everything as she went. In a total of two hours the entire tractor was fully assembled and gleaming. She had gone round it with a torque wrench and everything was tight and ship shape.

She was about to try and start it up, when she heard movement from the house. She decided to go clean herself up. She had made a bit of a mess of herself.

Marissa's shorts and T shirt, were a scruff.

**June 27th 1998. 0930 hours**

Joe and Emily were awaiting her with questions. Joe first, "Where have you been skulking, Cameron."

Cameron saw the distrust in their eyes and was saddened. She smiled and said, "Oh, come see what I've been doing. I think you'll like it."

The old couple took their coffee cups and shuffled after Cameron as she headed off to the back of the barn. As they rounded the end, Joe gasped, Emily was too shocked to speak.

Cameron sat in the drivers seat of the refurbished tractor and pressed the starter motor button. After two tries it kicked off, a bit of smoke from the exhausts and then it settled down running as smooth as the day it was built. Cameron beamed.

Joe looked at Emily speechless. The tractor was a massive help around the farm, but they just couldn't keep up with its maintenance needs, and here it was all fired up. He hugged Emily and got on the other front seat, and grinning stupidly at Cameron shouted, "Off we go then!"

Cameron engaged the clutch, popped into gear and they set off for a tour of the farm

For an hour, Joe was a kid again, as he and Cameron went right round the farm, checking which fences needed fixing up. Cameron had decided upon her next task. They got back and Emily had made breakfast of eggs, bacon and waffles. Cameron tried the coffee offered and didn't like it, but the scrambled eggs and bacon were full of protein, so just what she needed to heal.

As they were finishing breakfast, Joe asked Cameron, "Well, come on then. Tell us what happened?"

"I don't sleep much, so as soon as I got up, I wanted to make myself useful and repay you for the kindness you have shown me by doing some work around the farm. I can usually find something to do, there's always something to do round farms, right?"

Joe and Emily chuckled, "You got that right, Cam."

Camerons beautiful face clouded over instantly, and her troubled eyes looked steadily into Joe's, she remained silent for an uncomfortable beat.

"Oh, what's up, what did I say. " Said Joe. He saw those eyes, so kind a moment ago, go cold and lifeless.

Cameron's voice lowered almost to a whisper. "My name was given to me by someone very precious. He was the first to treat me like a person."

"He named me Cameron, he never once shortened it, why would you?" Her voice cracked.

Joe stared in astonishment, he thought Cameron was about to cry. Her eyes were glazing over. He was horrified

"Of course, Cameron it is." Emily nodded vigorously in agreement.

Cameron's face lightened and the rising sun breaking through the curtains gave a catchlight reflection to her brown eyes. Joe wondered if anyone could ever refuse this girl anything she asked. She didn't ask much and gave a great deal in return.

"So, the tractor, " Joe asked?

"Oh, yes. I saw it out the back and I have some experience fixing and wrenching...machinery."

They exchanged looks of disbelief, girls do tractor maintenance? Yeah right, on Mars.

Cameron shrugged, "I had lots of brothers."

It wasn't quite the truth, or anywhere near it as a matter of literality. The point about communication was getting your message across, right?

"So, I set to stripping it and putting it back together. There wasn't much wrong with it. We'll need to get some new plugs and an oil change would be good. It looks pretty ropey from the outside, but mechanically it looks good."

Joe interjected, "They built machines to last back in those days." He said with pride. Joe saw a slight clouding on Camerons face. What was that about, he wondered?

"What do I owe you Cameron? I don't have much in cash, but I can go to the bank when we're out. That tractor working is worth a bunch to me. How much do I owe you.?

"No, nothing. You have been so kind to me and I like to make myself useful. If we could go into town today, get some new parts, plugs and oil for the tractor, and a few fence posts, wire and nails, that's my afternoon tied up. I'll sleep well tonight."

"Cameron, you aren't our slave, but our guest." Said Emily. "What can we do for you?"

Cameron replied, "Well, I have no money, but if I work for it, I could use some more protein powder, bananas and chocolate milk. I really like that chocolate milk." She grinned that trademark smile.

Emily held her shopping list up to Cameron. The first items on her shopping list was Almond chocolate milk, eggs and bananas.

"How are your bruises and cuts?"

"They weren't much to write home about anyway, and they're doing much better already. I have great healing skin, look!"

Cameron rolled up her sleeves, and showed that her lumps and bumps were indeed much better. It was surprising, but she looked like a woman in the peak of fitness, and athletes healed quick, right?

Both Joe and Emily were coming to the same opinion that their visitor had been sent by some guardian angel on the lookout for them. In return they had knocked her over in the road. She had sprung up and made everything she touched better. They were beginning to hope they could persuade the young lady somehow to stay a little longer than two days, and were already working out schemes.

Joe said, "Okay, Cameron, lets all get cleaned up and we'll make tracks for the feed supply."

**27th June 1998 1215 hours.**

The trio gathered at the truck and after Emily had gotten in to her usual front seat, Joe wondered. "Cameron, would you like to drive? You don't have to, I'm happy..."

Cameron snatched the keys out of his hands and lifting up the drivers seat, offered Joe the cab seat, clearly delighted. "Tickets Please?"

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**July 25th 2027. **

**TOK 715 reborn**.

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TOK 715 was still chained to the operating table, and was looking watchfully around the room. When her eyes arrived on Delgado and Klein, she nodded in appreciation and said, "Ah, Connors pet killers, pleased to meet you. Skynet has a high price on your heads, you've been quite an irritant to her."

Delgado grinned at what he supposed to be a compliment, Klein said nothing, face expressionless.

TOK 715 then spoke directly to Connor, "You can release me. I have been reprogrammed, I am perfectly safe around you now."

Connor said, "What is your mission?"

TOK715 shook her head, in what looked like annoyance, "Well, you are aware that Nikopol has removed all my previous programming, I don't have a mission."

"If I release you, will you harm me or anyone else here?"

TOK715 stared into Connors eyes for an unconscionable time, then said, indignantly, as if she were fed up with the enquiry, "I will NOT harm you, or your staff."

"Promise?"

TOK715, "Promise."

Delgado and Klein were nervous, Delgado said, "Jefe, you sure about this?"

TOK715 turned her beautiful head and eyes to Delgado and said, "Cesar, do you think these chains could hold me if I chose otherwise?"

Delgado checked out the chains, they looked secure to him. He noted that she had used his first name, weirder and weirder.

Then, with a move that was so fast it was almost impossible to see, TOK715's left hand reached up to the chain holding her shoulder and broke it apart with her fingers.

All the guns in the room clicked to active, Connor yelled, "Wait, don't fire." The tension was shreiking out of him. What the hell was the machine up to?

"Mr Connor. I am a machine. I don't make threats. I do. If I say I'm not going to kill you, then I am not."

Connor, "Well that's a relief. How do I know I can trust you."

TOK715 looked at him, in what he thought was a pitying look, _hold on, how does a machine do that?_

She then said, "This room is filled with guns, some held by your soldiers and others held by machines, how do you trust them?"

Connor, "Good point, you must have been chair of the debating society."

A two second beat. "I am unfamiliar with that term, further information is required."

Connor made a decision, "all personnel may leave the room. I am going to release TOK715. Only volunteers need remain."

Not a soldier moved an inch, none of them needed coffee.

John Connor strode across to the table and unlocked the padlocks and chain assembly. TOK715 stood and nodding to Connor, said, "Thank you, even we machines prefer and deserve a little dignity."

Then, in a move that stunned all those who saw it, TOK715 grabbed hold of Connor, enveloping him in her arms, turned his back to the guns.

"John Connor, I'm not going to hurt you. Please remove the threat to me, it wastes a tremendous amount of my processing power."

John Connor, swamped in a hug that was even stronger than that of his mother, realised this machine had the best of him for today. It was a risk, what wasn't? All life was a sexually transmitted disease, ultimately fatal.

"Stand Down, Stand Down, stand down."

One after the other, the safety catches were placed back on the weaponry. TOK715 released John Connor, and said, "Now, please release them to their duties, I will not harm you. You have my word."

Disastrously, as he was being held by the machine, John Connor noted that he felt her breasts against his chest. Even more disastrously his hips were in contact with hers. HERS? Shit, she was a machine, and he was responding to her, with guns and bullets pointed at him, certain death a step away. Why was he like a rock against her belly?

HER, dammit, she was a machine!

As he jumped away from her, she smiled wickedly. She had noticed, oh yes, she had noticed. Hard to avoid a bar like protuberance fixed against your hips.

Oh fuck, there he goes again. She. He had heard that people surrounded by the fear of death, become sexually active. He had just had a demonstration, and it was profoundly disturbing.

"Your officer Nikopol has further removed any semblance of the base programming that was placed on me by Skynet. I have no mission. I am assuming that you will make use of me, to attack Skynet."

"You guess right."

"You should be aware that as soon as I approach any Skynet base, I will be attacked and destroyed. I would be more usefully employed on something within your organization."

"Oh. What did you have in mind?"

"John Connor, you need someone to protect you."

Connor was stunned, and unable to keep the surprise off his face.

TOK715 smiled seductively, "I could do that."

Connor was once again seized by her use of language, _someone, not something?_

TOK715 said, "Isn't it time you gave me a name, John Connor? Isn't that something you humans do?"

John thought for a moment, and said, "What would you like to be called?"

"The old Scottish clan of Cameron were supposed to be fiercer than fierceness itself, I can be pretty fierce when required, what about that?"

John smiled, "Okay, that works."

Cameron returned the smile, ""Aonaibh ri chéile" ("Unite"), is the motto of the clan, that seems appropriate."

John said, "While we're on that subject, why did you make the reference to "The Scottish Play, " when you spoke to Nikopol?"

"She was deliberately pissing me off, and that is irritating. I was built, not born, so I could not possibly be a bastard. I didn't expect anyone to recognise the quote."

"Cameron, I'm already getting the idea that you are unique."

"Oh yes, I am."

"Don't you want to hug me again, John?"|

Then she did his brain in.

"I wouldn't mind hugging you." TOK715/Cameron opened her arms up and offered herself to him.

"Come hold me, I want to hold you."

"NOW, John Connor, Now!"

Then, against all the advice he had ever heard, John Connor held the machine that was sent to kill him and felt comforted.

TBC.

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I have used the characters of Count Orsino, Delgado and Klein, with his permission, and a name he used, "Marissa." Thanks again to Spirit Chickadee, for inspiration and Lyaksandra for the endless help, editing and general bollockings on the way. Writing is NOT a lone process, it comes from a lot of people.

I'm always grateful for reviews, please, if you have the time, or enjoy the story enough to get to the end, saying so is nice.

brendan


	3. Chapter 3

**Growing and Learning.**

**August 5th, 2027**

Cameron had been Connor's protector for a month before the first incident occurred. He had rapidly gotten used to her being around. She was quiet, helpful and observant of his needs for privacy.

Her ability to winnow out the necessary from the unimportant saved him an immense amount of frustration. She had a razor-sharp intelligence and a thirst for knowledge that was voracious.

Then one morning a scrubbed Terminator went _bad._

This happened on occasion, and no one was really certain why. There were all sorts of theories, of which the most popular was that something happened internally to the chip which caused it to revert to Skynet's original programming. Which of course, is to kill humans. Sadly, when it happened, they usually managed to be very effective, being internal and mostly trusted servants of the resistance.

They heard a commotion of shooting and screaming in the tunnel, close by. John immediately grabbed his Plasma rifle and set out for the door.

Cameron grabbed him and refused to let him leave. Cameron was never physical with him, what was the matter with her? She said, "No, you can't, that thing will kill you."

Even in the chaos and fear, John was forced to wonder at her use of language, "that thing?"

Connor stared at Cameron and said, "My life is dangerous, it's what we do here. Stand aside soldier, that's an order!"

Cameron stood aside, and was at his side, or just ahead while he ran for the sickening sound of bodies being broken and smashed against the walls. They rounded a corner and saw the T-888hammering some poor soul into the concrete floor. John was about to take aim, when Cameron shot forward. Her speed was astonishing and he was transfixed, plasma rifle in hand as Cameron raced toward the cyborg.

The fight was over as soon as it began. Cameron leaped into the air just before reaching the machine and kicked it in the neck. It was knocked off balance, struck the wall and was about to try and get back into the fight when she lifted it off its feet and tore its head right off. She then took the head and in what looked to John like an act of wanton destruction smashed the head to the concrete floor. She ground the head into a thousand pieces. Stomping it till it no longer looked like a cyborg head. This destructive phase was accompanied by an apparent fury that took John's breath away.

When Terminators killed, they just killed. What was she up to?

It was a standard instruction that when you killed one, you kept parts for future operations. Especially when one went rogue, it was important to retrieve the chip, so the techs could at least try to find out what went awry.

Cameron had simply taken the thing apart, and the chip was now a mess of squashed Terminator head. They'd never get anything out of that.

He was nervous of approaching her as she continued stamping on the squash. He yelled, "Cameron."

She never heard as her boots thundered into the metal mess, possessed by inner demons.

He yelled louder, "Cameron!"

Eventually he got through, and she gave him a look that he could not understand.

She looked pissed, exultant and furious at the same time.

She stopped pounding the head, and said, "Oh!"

Giving the squashed mass that had been the head one more crushing blow from her heel, she turned to John and walked quickly back to him. Placing herself marginally in front of him as the plasma rifles of the other tunnel dwellers came into view.

"Cameron, what was that?"

"That thing was coming to kill you. I stopped it."

Again, _that thing_.

Cameron, "Lets go back to my quarters, we need to talk."

She nodded, "Of course, Sir."

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Once they were back in John's quarters, it was time to find out what had happened.

"Cameron, did you lose your temper back there?"

Cameron was clearly confused, and shook her head in what for a human being would indicate puzzlement. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean. It would have killed you, I stopped and killed it."

"Cameron, why did you destroy it?"

"I-it was going to." She stopped, clearly at a loss for explanation. Her head shook in confusion again.

Connor was surprised, he hadn't had a moment's trouble with TOK715 since she had been born again as Cameron. She had taken on her duties with more enthusiasm that any of his previous soldiers. He really enjoyed having her around, aside from everything else, she looked and smelled good. For a tunnel dweller, that was a relief. You did get used to some of the stink, perhaps by anosmia, but people stink could be tough.

Cameron always smelt of Neroli.

Connor remembered the day he first asked her about it. Cameron had come in from a raid of city shops to try and find supplies. Connor noticed that her always neutral smell had changed to something unbelievably light, but ridiculously earthy and pleasant. Sweet, like Roses, but something else entirely.

He said, "Cameron, what is that smell, you into perfume now?" She did her usual glance of frustrated confusion when he asked her personal questions, as if she'd done something wrong.

"Oh, don't you like it? I'll get rid of it right away."

"Oh no, I love it, what is it, and where did you get it?"

"John, it is pure Neroli essence. Anne Marie Orsini, duchess of Bracciano and princess of Nerola, Italy, began using it in the 17th Century."

John did his mouth open fish impression. Just where did this Terminator come from?

"I was searching for medical supplies in a pharmacy warehouse and I came across a case of it. Of course, it is worth nothing nowadays, but before judgement day, this consignment of Neroli would have been worth millions. It is the most expensive oil ever and a pint is about the same price as three Mercedes. This is a particularly fine vintage, a real bigarade."

John grinned, "Oh, a real bigarade, that's good, right?"

Cameron just smiled that deadly smile of her, and nodded. She gave John that look where her face was as still as a stone, but her eyes were setting fire to his insides.

"Cameron, it is a glorious scent, I love it. It is very-you." He smiled.

Cameron glowed inside. Her processes running overtime.

"I liberated it, and you may have some if you want."

Connor was hypnotizedat the cyborg's attention to detail and again he wondered how the heck she knew about this weird stuff, or why she cared.

"What will you do with it, Cameron?"

"I will use one drop a day. Just below my ear, and keep the rest hidden."

"What if I don't like the fact that you won't share it?"

"I will share with you."

"No, Cameron, why won't you share with the rest of the base?"

"John, when you did not give me a mission, and you allowed me free will, it did something to my processes. I don't really know why I want to possess things now, but I do. I find this Neroli something beautiful inthis-difficult world. If I shared it with everyone, they would not know what they had and would use it all up in days."

She looked pleadingly at him, "It will last me years and years. Please let me keep it? It is only a small thing, no one else will notice or care."

She regarded Connor coolly, "If you require me to give it up, or share it-I will. I don't want to, but I will carry out your instructions. I have free will, and I choose to accept them."

"Cameron, no, you don't have to give it up. Its-okay." He smiled in embarrassment. "Its just some oil, right?"

"John Connor, at times you can be a real idiot." Cameron turned her face away in what to John looked like-like what exactly?

"I'm just puzzled at what you've become. I know you're a terminator, but you're not like any of the previous machines we've encountered."

"No, John,- I'm different. You gave me free will, something no other machine has had. Because of that free will, I have to make choices now, and it means I am learning preferences. It is very difficult. She dropped her chin into her trochlear notch and enunciated clearly, "This Neroli oil is not just WD40. It is part of what makes me different, an individual."

Connor looked at TOK715/Cameron and was quiet.

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Connor and Nikopol are in what she laughingly refers to as her computer suite. To be fair, while most things were in poor supply, the resistance did try to keep her as up to date as possible, and she had power and lights. Nikopol had been expecting a visit from Connor regarding the Wed'ma. She knew it would cause trouble at some point.

"So, what did the She-Devil do?" She asked.

Connor replied, "Nothing I can put my finger on exactly, but she seems to be displaying emotions."

"A chip with that much power, if you let it run free and don't regulate its activity, strange things were bound to happen."

"You did warn me, I know."

"I did."

Connor asked, "What should we do? I don't want to lose her, she's very useful."

Nikopol sighed, Connor was letting his dick do the thinking again. Men!

Nikopol replied, "Call her in, pull her chip and let me take a look at it. I can't promise anything, you know I told you she was dangerous."

Connor nodded, he had expected exactly that response.

Connor called Cameron to the computer suite.

Cameron had been on patrol and made her way to the suite, she knocked lightly on the door, and entered. She saw Nikopol in close conference with Connor. She had always feared Nikopol, and didn't like this development one bit.

Connor spoke, "Cameron, submit for chip extraction and examination."

Cameron's head whipped round and she stared at Connor. She looks-disappointed. "Why do you want to do that, John? I'll tell you anything you want to know, just ask." She looked confused, and worried. "You know that Nikopol does not like me, how do you know she won't harm me while my chip is out?"

"Cameron, do you think she would?"

Cameron was silent, and giving her wooden face stare.

"Cameron, I have to lead around here. I can't treat everyone like friends and sometimes I have to make decisions that officers don't like. I need to know what's going on with your chip."

Cameron was shaking her head, she clearly did not want to go under Nikopols knife.

Connor's face assumed command mode and his voice hardened. "TOK715, submit your chip for extraction and examination."

He saw the instant distress in Cameron's expression as he had used her machine designation and he tried to lighten her fear. "Cameron, I need you to do this. Don't worry, I'll make sure you are safe, I'll be with you the whole time."

At that last, Cameron shook her head more vigorously still.

She said, "No, that won't be necessary. Nikopol, lets get this done."

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Nikopol had been looking through Cameron's files for hours. Her eyes were bugged out. There was no doubt in her mind whatever.

This machine, the Wed'mawas fond of Connor.

She had never even heard of a machine developing any kind of affection for anyone or anything before. The amount of chip activity when Connor was around her proved that she regarded him differently to the others on base. Her chip activity flatlined with those, carrying out tasks, it was the same. When Connor asked her to do something, or asked her a question she couldn't answer, the graph showed wild fluctuations.

When she got to the scene with the destroyed T-888, the chip activity was at maximum, right through the attack.

Then, to her complete shock, she watched the scenes where Cameron found a DVD player with some DVD's of Opera. Cameron had sat there, utterly transfixed at the music and theatre on screen. Her chip activity was bursting through the roof at the conclusion. How was it, that a machine could respond to musical art?

She wondered idly what she was supposed to do about it. She played various scenarios through her brain, and she could see risks for the cyborg in each one.

_Wait a minute?_

Only a few weeks back, she was petrified of this machine. Now she was full of sympathy for its plight. Nikopol looked back at her own childhood, when her precocious intelligence had earned her nothing but brickbats and misunderstanding from everyone she knew. Even her parents. Examining the chip had brought her to the understanding that the Wed'ma was exactly like she was as a child, unappreciated by everyone. Lost and alone, in a strange landscape, the building of which she had no part in, Nikopol felt like weeping for the child/cyborg.

Nikopol reminisced about meeting the Wed'ma, she hadn't liked it at all. She knew what a tremendously powerful creature it could be, and feared that power. Now, having scanned and re-scanned her memories and chip activity, her heart broke at how lonely and confusing an existence the Wed'ma was enduring. It was doing its very, very best. It was like a four week old child with a brain the size of a planet, yet it had kept that power to herself and behaved loyally. Even the cyborgs parents, John Connor and Nikopol had treated it badly and refused to trust it. Yet the cyborg had been utterly loyal.

It was a moral statement that would shame even a Jain.

It would do _anything_ for John Connor, that much was clear.

He, it was also clear, had no idea of what he had with the Wed'ma_._

She determined from that point, she would aid it when she could.

Nikopol inserted the chip, and waited for the boot-up. Cameron opened her eyes, and looked coolly at her.

"So, you didn't terminate me. Why not?"

Nikopol took her life in her hands and closing her eyes as she bent over the Terminator, considered her next move.

Nikopol realised she was falling in love and was utterly powerless to resist it.

Lost in desire, she touched her lips to Cameron's left ear, and traced her tongue from there to the cyborg's lips. It was a journey in grace. Her hair swept across the Wed'ma's face, and Nikopol was entranced by the way her red hair interacted with Cameron's brown.

Touching her lips to the cyborg's, she felt her heart pounding wildly. She knew Cameron was a machine, and that these lips were machine made, but she couldn't stop herself. She was moist all over, from inside to out.

She had seen everything inside the machine, there were no secrets. Cameron's scent was intoxicating, she smelled of life itself. Nikopol found herself falling down a hole of love and lust.

Cameron was utterly confused, but remained steady and unresisting as Nikopol kissed her. Her programming brought no conflicts or confusions with having sex with either side. Human history was littered with them all having sex with each other like rabbits, and then denying their nature for church, the dinner table, or law.

Post Judgement Day. Those rules didn't matter. She was anatomically correct, she could do what she wanted.

Just as Cameron was starting to feel some pleasant sensations from the kiss, Nikopol reluctantly stopped kissing her and stood up, her eyes glistening.

"Wed'ma, it won't be me who terminates you, but you are in some danger. You need to talk openly with me and then Connor and tell the truth about what is happening with you. I am fairly certain Connor will get it, especially if I'm on your side. The rest of the command, I don't know."

"Why? What have I done?"

"I think you know. Let us examine the tapes, together."

Nikopol entered the machine codes to play the relevant tapes. She showed the scenes where Connor was asking questions Cameron could not answer, and then the destruction of the T-888. Chip activity going up and down like a fiddlers elbow when Connor was around, then the peaks at the time of the T-888 attack. Lastly, she played the scenes from the Opera. Cameron's eyes misted over again. This was supposed to be an infiltration tecnique, not a natural emotional reaction. Nikopol noted with shock, that it was. Having seen the chip activity, she knew the Wed'ma was not manipulating.

Cameron looked into Nikopol's eyes, and said, "Oh."

For a cyborg, with an impossibly complicated brain, and only a few weeks' experience of life, Cameron had already mastered the art of understatement.

Nikopol smiled conspiratorially, and laughed.

"Quite. Oh."

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**Boys Will Be Boys**

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Santa Fe 27th June 1998, the afternoon.

Cameron _loved_ to drive, Joe and Emily were delighted to let her do so. They drove into Santa Fe and while Joe and Cameron did Home Depot together, Emily had worked out Cameron's size and spent some time filling bags with underwear, clothing and a jacket for her.

Then after lunch they did food shopping, and Emily kept to her list, making sure Cameron's needs were taken care of.

As they began the drive out of town, Cameron stopped the car at a red traffic light, only to be gently bumped by an SUV from behind.

Two young men got out of the car, and approached Joe's wagon from both sides. Joe was nervous, but told Cameron to relax and just swap details which were in the glove compartment.

Cameron can see that there were another three young men in the car, and that that the two approaching were armed. She sees the lumps on their hips. She knows trouble will ensue. Her processes are overloaded, and she wishes not to over-react and kill everything in sight. Unfortunately for the young men, that may not be possible.

The first young man comes to Cameron's driver's window. "You have rolled back into us, it is clearly your fault."

Cameron checks her GPS statistics, and says, "This is a perfectly level street, I could not have rolled back to you." She stares hard at the young man, in a vain attempt to warn him. At this time, Emily is getting scared at the activities of the thug on her side of the car. He is banging the the door and pointing his gun at Emily.

Cameron winds the window down fully. "What do you want, pokoĭnik?"

"What you say, Chica bitch?" The young man spat in her face.

Cameron replied, "What do you want, dead man?"

"Do fucking what, puta?"

Cameron smiled, "Oh, you know me as the Roman goddess of agriculture?"

The young man poked the gun through the open window. He brought the gun a little closer to Cameron's head, in order to frighten her or to blow her stupid head off if she didn't give up all the money quickly.

He had just made the biggest mistake of his short life.

Cameron pulled his arm through the door, breaking his arm at the elbow. Using his hand and the pistol he was holding, she shot his associate on the other side of the car through the neck. The round punctured the internal carotid artery, and blew it to pieces.

Cameron then turned his own gun on her attacker and shot him through the neck with the same result. He fell away from the car, already dead although he didn't know it yet.

Two shots, two dead idiots. No DNA on her. Time to exit the scene.

She pressed the accelerator on the next green traffic light.

Joe and Emily were silent. It was a quiet drive home.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Way Of The World**

**Santa Fe 27th June 1998, late in the afternoon.**

It was a quiet ride home. Cameron was feverishly going over her actions to see if she could have done anything differently. No matter which way she read it, there was nothing else she could have done. The two boys had written their own death warrants when they attacked Joe's wagon. There was no doubt, she hadbeen forced to terminate them.

From an efficiency viewpoint, she should have cleaned up the three in the car as well. She had checked the CCTV situation at the junction, and there were no cameras. She should have cleaned up, but as John was often fond of saying-life was a risk. You couldn't cover everything. It had been a lonely four way junction just on the edge of town. Chosen by the robbers for that purpose.

There were only the three witnesses in the back of the car. When the cops arrived, they would find two dead gangsters lying by the road. Chances were that the three witnesses would say nothing to the cops, for fear of whatever had killed their partners in crime. They almost certainly suspected they had stumbled across another set of gang members. They would leave it like that, and hope to get revenge privately.

If they attempted revenge, they would find a _Mudak Wed'ma _waiting for them. She delighted at the remembrance of her title from Nikopol, who had started off her enemy and had become something else entirely. What had Nikopol become?

Cameron decided to run with that, and hoped it would be correct. In case it became absolutely necessary she could also re-visit, and cleanup. She had taken note of the registration number of the car the thugs were in.

Where were John and Nikopol when she needed them? Right now she felt completely alone.

Cameron knew what to do in most circumstances, what humans referred to as common sense was dealt with in her processes as simple logic. The problems always arose where logic and emotion met head-on. That was where she made mistakes and right now, she really missed the ready advice of the two people who had become her somewhat avuncular _father_ and _mother_.

Cameron knew that Joe and Emily would have objected to her cleaning up after the robbery attempt. That was the logical thing to do, to ensure there were no witnesses. If they would allow her, Cameron wanted to stay with them while she was waiting for John Junior to appear. That was almost a year away, courtesy of the TDE malfunction which sent her back a year early. En Medio was quiet, out of the way, and she could do some good for the couple and learn more about humanity.

She really liked the tractor and being out in the sun, digging up the soil. She was a machine, but _oh how she loved that!_ She would wear a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a sun hat. It became her favourite thing to do. She felt entirely at home working with the soil. She had told John that her being given free will was the engine for her learning to make preferences. In truth, she was uncertain exactly, but how she loved to tractor and plough!

She had a year, a whole bag full of time, and she could learn a lot. First though, they needed to get past this imbroglio.

Cameron pulled up to the farmhouse, Joe and Emily got out, grabbed the shopping bags and went in. Cameron took the heavy materials for the tractor and fences, and took them to the barn. She then walked back to the house, and knocked gently at the door.

Joe answered and held it wide open beckoning Cameron to enter, and Cameron could hear Emily throwing up into the hall half-bath. Cameron stood still.

"Would you prefer it if I left, Joe? She looked at him, face impassive. "I don't mind. I don't want to become a problem for you or Emily. I can just leave."

Joe shook his head, and opened his arms to the girl. He enveloped her into a hug and holding her gently said, "No Cameron, you saved our lives today. Why would we want you to go away? You should tell me what's going on with you though. I've already worked out that there's something a little different about you, and we both need to know what that is."

Cameron quietly murmured in Joe's arms, "Are you sure, Joe?"

"Yes, Cameron, I'm sure. Whatever it is you are involved in, we must know. Neither Emily or me will have anything to do with terrorism. We've kinda worked out that you are some sort of soldier and obviously on a campaign, but we won't have anything to do with terrorism."

Cameron giggled and thumped him gently on the chest, "Oh Joe, you have no idea how much it is _not_ me that is the terrorist. It is those I oppose. I would not have harmed those thugs today. I'm not built to be cruel, but they left me with no choice. They might have killed either you or Emily. I just wasn't going to let that happen."

Joe stared in amazement.

_I'm not built to be cruel? _

Cameron was so small, so unaffected and innocent. How could she be that brutal, effective killer he saw earlier today?

"Cameron, I've been a soldier, and I've been in action a time or two. I've never seen such decisive response, and you showed no concern for your own safety at all. How come?"

"Joe, I'll tell you everything, and you must promise me that you will let no one know. It is a much bigger secret than you realize. For now, let us make drinks and wait for Emily."

The man realized he was still holding onto Cameron, funny how he had forgotten that. She was so adorable, cute and cuddly, it was easy to get lost in her. Underneath her ribs he knew beat the heart of a lioness, but she reminded him so much of his daughter, Marissa.

Cameron found that being held by Joe, in this thing humans called a hug was very much to her taste. He was old, but wonderfully wise and she felt safe with him. Her machine-ness, seemed less of an issue in that embrace and she was growing very close to the old couple who had treated her so well.

She determined that she was going to make this work. Wanting to stay with Joe and Emily till John Junior was due.

Cameron arranged her protein drink, and found some Gatorade that would help Emily's loss of electrolytes after being sick. Joe poured himself four fingers of bourbon, noting Cameron's singular distaste, expressed wonderfully by the wrinkling of her small nose.

When everyone was seated, Cameron began, "Okay, Joe and Emily, what exactly is it you want to know?"

Emily spoke first. Her face was grey and her eyes were bloodshot from crying. "What happened back there, Cameron, why did they attack us?"

"Emily, I do not know. I assume it was some sort of robbery attempt. Isn't it called car-jacking?"

Joe said, "How were you able to deal with them so easily, what sort of soldier are you?"

Cameron smiled. "I'm not a soldier, not exactly."

Emily, still grizzling, asked, "Then what exactly are you?"

Cameron let out a faux deep sigh. "Are you both sure you want to know? It will be difficult for you. I am not a terrorist, but I am not quite what you understand as a soldier."

Both Emily and Joe nodded their heads.

Cameron regarded them carefully, and then her eyes glowed blue.

Emily let out a small shriek, almost instantly silenced in shock. Joe, who was calmer, took Emily's hand. He had seen the blue glow before.

"So, are you an alien?" Emily said, turning to Joe. "All that stuff about Roswell is true?"

Joe held Emily's hand carefully and wondered if he should speak right now. He was pretty sure that Cameron was not an alien, but what exactly she was, he wasn't sure.

Cameron held his gaze steadily, with a question in her eyes. Joe regarded her carefully and nodded.

_Now's the time._

"Mr and Mrs Phillips," Cameron smiled sweetly, "I am a cyborg. I am not human, I am a machine."

The air thickened.

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Cameron told Joe and Emily her story. How she was built by a sentient computer named Skynet, in order to infiltrate the resistance and terminate one John Connor. How he, John Connor reprogrammed her and gave her free will. She left out the business of time-travel for now.

At that point, Joe held up a hand. "Cameron, can you explain that? The bit about free will."

"It is complex, isn't it?" She smiled.

"All the machines Skynet builds are given a purpose. That is to terminate either specific humans or any human. Either way, that's it. That's what we are designed to do. It is very simple, not a lot of processing required. See a human, kill it. Where Skynet committed a major error with me, was in providing me with enormous processing capabilities. Hence, when I got free will, my existence became one where every moment I am forced to choose, and create preferences. I found it enormously difficult at first, and at times even now. With the exercise of those preferences, comes a lot of responsibility."

Joe stared perplexed at Cameron. "So the free will and the extra computing power led indirectly to you becoming sentient?"

"It's really hard to give an answer that makes sense to that. I'm still learning and growing every day."

Cameron's beautiful face clouded for a moment. "I need a lot of guidance, please help me. At times I feel so lonely."

Emily was touched, her face flushed and her heart felt warmth. She knew that she would help this creature who had saved their lives. A girl who in spite of being a computer, was filled with uncertainty about the world.

"Of course dear, whatever we can help you with, we will."

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**September 2027**

**In The Tunnels**

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Nikopol and Cameron had become closer enemies and spent plenty of time together when John did not require either of them. Connor wondered at the change, but did not give it too much thought, as he was busy with the war. Nikopol usually sought Cameron out, and brought DVD's of Opera for them to watch together, often wailing with delight or using boxes of kleenex.

Nikopol had noted straight off that Cameron was transfixed by the Opera or the Ballet DVD's. In the resistance library, they were not hard to find. No one else ever took them out and watching Cameron bubble and flake at the ridiculous activity on the screen was a revelation to her. She wondered at how a machine could respond to an art-form that was outdated long ago.

Cameron was truly obsessed with it though and could never get enough. Nikopol thought it was the drama she loved, along with the costumes and then the music. Her metal parts did seem to resonate with the music, but she could not understand how Cameron was so affected by the drama. Nikopol would often wish to kiss her, to comfort her while it was going on.

The cyborg would never allow it.

She was so attendant to the activity on screen that she could not be moved. Then after the show finished, Cameron was often weak and torn to pieces. Nikopol could not understand this, she was a machine, why did she care about such prancing, dancing foolishness?

Then Cameron would allow her to kiss and they would make out. Nikopol would constantly run her hands over Cameron's body. She was driven mad with desire for the cyborg. Her body was so perfect and she was so much in love and lust. She knew something was holding Cameron back and she wondered what it was.

Every time she tried to undo the buttons on her shirt, Cameron twisted away.

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It was the end of a long day of meetings for John and he was exhausted. Cameron had fetched his evening meal and stood off to one side while he ate. John could tell that Cameron was hovering, and as soon as he finished he invited her to sit down.

"Come on Cameron, I know you want to say something. Sit down and spit it out, soldier."

Cameron smiled and sat down opposite to him. John was so good at interpreting signals.

"John, I have a problem."

"Troops dissing you again? Just tell me who it is and I'll have them transferred to somewhere _fuglier_ than here."

Cameron's head was still as stone. "No, John. It isn't the soldiers, mostly they leave me alone now."

"Then what's up _girl_?" the General inquired with honest curiosity.

Cameron then blurted out in a single breath, "Nikopol and me are getting pretty close. We've spent a lot of time together, and she kisses me a lot. I'm pretty certain she wants us to become lovers. I like it, but I don't know what to do."

John's mouth dropped open. She had even called the Tech, previously her sworn enemy by her given name.

He had no idea his favourite cyborg was starting a relationship with Nikopol. His brain was fizzing in confusion. He realized, too late to hide it, that he had feelings of his own toward the cyborg.

Feelings he had yet to admit to himself.

John Connor applied his General's face to speak. "Cameron, you have free will. You can do as you wish."

"Help me John. Ever since you reprogrammed me, and gave me that free will, you have been advising me. That guidance has been invaluable. I regard you as my _Father_."

His face became harder. If such a thing was possible.

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That night, under the cover of thick shadows and light naked feet, Cameron stalked the tunnels of the camp. She knew what the next step she would follow with Nikopol was, but she was unsure how the Tech would react, much less the rest of the humanity filling the place. They would always be prejudiced. Could she really blame them? Skynet had after all, taken everything from them, even if Cameron herself was not directly involved in all of it.

The cyborg arrived at Nikopol's personal quarters; being top Tech for John Connor entitled her to some of the _luxuries_ the resistance could afford. Impossibly silent, Cameron opened the door, and gliding on the tips of her feet, made her way inside.

Nikopol was splayed all over her mattress in a formless mess. Her perfect hairdo, a thing of the past. Waves of fiery auburn hair spilled over a make-do pillow. With her cyborg eyes, Cameron was able to see that the pillow, even if homemade, was letting escape some goose under-feathers. She marveled and couldn't help but smile to herself. Human adaptability was indeed something to be feared. They would even carry some of their flippant eccentricities into the post-apocalyptic future.

The form of sleeping humans had always been one of Cameron's fascinations. When they were awake, humans wore many _masks_ in order to comply with social and moral convention. When they slept though, humans simply were. Even if you could not see their true personality, their sleeping form was one of raw being. In her recent research, Cameron had also learned that in lust, humans also became more honest about themselves.

As she moved atop the Tech, Cameron mused at the idea that soon enough, she would learn if it were indeed true.

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Nikopol was one of the few people that, even if not through a full night, were able to sleep deeply when they did. Her conscience was clear, not because she was good and proper, but because she was always true to herself, and did everything with the mindset that it was the right thing to do.

Thus, it was a while before the scent permeated her dreams, molding them into a form closer to what lay outside her mind. It was like roses, but not quite. The smell of soil and beauty perhaps. Her smell. If she had to make words for the aroma, it would be the gentle and sweet musk of the earth. Neroli, the _Wed'ma_ had called it.

Slowly the Tech came to her senses, while her mind raced with the memory of Cameron's smell. When she opened her eyes, lazily at first, she saw a figure that hovered over her. This prompted her eyes to shoot wide open, and the rest of her senses came to her like a tidal wave. Her body was pinned down and barely able to move, while a thick curtain of hair fell on the sides of her face, gently tickling her cheeks and ears. Then she realized that the smell in her dreams was overpowering right there. It was Cameron who lay atop her.

Nikopol relaxed a bit and whispered, "What is it _Malyh Wed'ma?_ Is there trouble?"

Cameron smiled, and silenced her, putting her index softly on her lips. The _Wed'ma_ then let her head drop lower, close to her ear, and made a _shushing_ sound. Nikopol saw the brunette return, and close in on her face. She knew what was coming, but it had always been her initiative, never Cameron's, so her heart raced with anticipation. The human brain was a magical thing, with all its abstract comprehension, it was indeed shocking how different a kiss could be, if initiated by the object of an affection you once thought one-sided.

The cyborg's lips were perfect, soft and smooth, while at the same time firm and consistent. Made for kissing.

She felt empty at their parting, and stared longingly at the Terminator that right now had her heart in her hands.

Cameron smiled at her, and it reached her eyes. Such a view was never seen by others. Only John Connor and herself were granted this benediction. Actually, the _Wed'ma_ smiled like this even more for Connor than her, and such a thought tugged at her soul. A feeling that didn't last, because next, Cameron grabbed her hand positioning it on her shirt's top button.

Her mind flared to life as her loins gave vent to the same fire. Cameron was granting her permission to do what she had always tried, and failed. Nikopol fumbled with both hands to start undoing the cyborg's clothes. She gasped at what she found underneath. Sheer unblemished perfection in texture and form. The Tech swallowed hard and reached to hold, for the first time, her _Malyh Wed'ma_'s uncovered breast, and even though she knew it was a machine, her delight was utterly human.

Barely breathing as the body required, Nikopol sat up, and followed her hand with lips that hungrily caressed Cameron's skin. Her lips were burning, and her nose and mouth were full of her scent. Not just the Neroli. This close, she was able to make something else, which she had thought previously impossible. Whatever the vat-grown skin of infiltrators was made of, it had its own smell. The _Wed'ma_ smelled like the most forbidden of pleasures ought. The mixture of Cameron with the Neroli should be kept under lock and key, lest humanity went mad over it.

Nikopol was too devoted to realize her partner was quickly forming a pout. By the time she realized something was amiss, it was showing on her beautiful face, accompanied by a small frown.

Tentatively, Nikopol studied her companion, and then spoke, "Did I misunderstand? Was this not what you wanted?"

Cameron smiled, just a small curvature of her lips. "It is, but I thought this was a matter of two. You are being quite greedy."

"Oh," the Tech replied, and immediately fumbled to move away from the cyborg. She looked at Cameron apologetically. "I am so sorry _Malyh Wed'ma_, here I am, the one supposed to be teaching you, taking everything for myself. It's just, you don't understand, hell… even I don't understand these feelings I have for you."

The cyborg looked at her tilting her head to one side. She frowned again, deeper this time, and with a grunt of exasperation leapt, positioning herself behind Nikopol.

She was surprised by Cameron's sudden outburst, but the curious hands that started exploring her body, silenced any complaint she might had been about to voice. The _Wed'ma_ explored like a child, and an adult at the same time. Her hands moved with perfect grace and curiosity, but each of her prods and gropes, were those of a consummate lover.

Soon enough she could not stand just being on the receiving side, and turned to look at Cameron. Cupping one cheek with her hand and caressing it with her thumb, she moved in to press her lips against the cyborg's. Nikopol promptly got rid of her shirt, and they both started running their hands all over each other's body. Exploring, learning, revelling on the sensations it brought.

The passion soon overcame Nikopol like a tidal wave, gasping for precious breath she pushed Cameron down and got on top. She looked at her face, framed by a pool of soft, wavy hair. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The innocence of her small and smooth features, contrasted by a look of pure and very knowing lust in her eyes.

Nikopol let out a short laugh that masked the knot she felt in her throat. Nevertheless, tears rolled down her cheeks, and a small sob escaped her reddened lips.

"I love you, Cameron. God help me, I do."

The response was about what she had expected. Cameron smiled, that beautiful smile that reached her eyes, and gave a glance of her perfect teeth. Nikopol knew very well the meaning of this. She had not expected the cyborg to go so far as to reciprocate her feelings, either because she could not possibly understand them completely at the time, or because there probably was someone else in her head.

Nevertheless, she would be damned if she let go of the opportunity that Cameron was presenting her with. Nikopol closed the distance between them, and kissed her _Malyh Wed'ma_ deeply, and with matching passion moved her hand down between her lover's thighs.

Cameron felt a trail of fire on the wake of Nikopol's hand. She let out a small gasp when the hand reached its goal, and decided to replicate the action to elicit, and receive the same in return. The human's reaction did not disappoint.

Soon enough the barrier of their bodies became a blur and the one in their minds practically disappeared, allowing them to merge into one. Just like the times when they slept, humans in lust, just were. Cameron smiled internally at the positive response to her expectations.

That day human and machine built a bridge. Made of something that most humans would see as sin, the honest love of the former, and the innocent exploration and affection of the latter. The human crossed it, and in the process closed the gap between enemies, gaining a better understanding that could possibly bring a future of peaceful coexistence. The machine crossed it, and learnt that in spite of all the knowledge Skynet had instilled in her and everything she had learned in freedom, humans were more than she ever thought. Much more.

Cameron could barely wait to share her revelation with John.

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**Cameron Meets a Friend.**

**Santa Fe 4th July 1998**

Cameron was in the lower forty acres, close to the river. She was mending fences with Joe, when he decided to take a break. He could not work like Cameron, and while his company was nice, he did slow things down a bit. With him gone for lunch, Cameron could work faster. Having fixed the fence in this area, she spotted a small black and white cat watching her. She had seen it earlier, lazing in the sunshine. Now, here it was again, some fifty yards further south. Clearly the cat was following her, though keeping some distance.

She decided to see if she could attract it. While its eyes looked healthy enough, Cameron could see that it was scraggly and thin. She went to the Tractor and saw Joe's lunch pack with sandwiches and bread. She broke off a few pieces of the honey-baked ham and threw them to the cat. Using her targeting metrics, she landed the meat precisely underneath the cats nose.

It wolfed down the food, so Cameron broke the rest up and approaching a little closer, left it shredded a few feet in front. The cat had to move to come get it. Of course, hunger overcame its fear and the cat scoffed the rest like ambrosia. Cameron decided to bring more food tomorrow, and see what happened.

Over the course of the next week or so, the cat got closer and closer as Cameron fed it. She grew to anticipate its company in the fields, and it was obviously expecting her to be bringing food. As one of the great imponderables of her chip's processes, Cameron found the cat a great comfort. It didn't seem to expect much except food, and stayed quietly off and watched her. Cameron thought cats were strange creatures, at first she saw it totally unlike her machine-ness.

Later on she learned that _Felis Catus_ could even sleep 20 hours of the day, but still remained aware enough to detect when danger approached.

Perhaps machine and cat had more in common than she had originally thought.

Cameron did not sleep, but she did enjoy the warmth of the electric blanket at night while Joe and Emily slept. She decided that for the sake of appearances, unless it were necessary to change, this would be her pattern of behaviour. It was rather like the taking of food. She did not require it unless injured. However, the sharing of food as a social convention was becoming very important to her. She always learned a great deal around the table. It would help her in the future, she knew. As accepting as Joe and Emily were of her metal nature, she was pretty certain that the thought of her stalking around at night would cause them some disquiet. So, the standby routine was as much for them as for her.

One night, as she lay in the bed, prior to going into standby she heard a _meow_ and a scratching at the window. She got up, and opened the window, to find the little cat there, anxious to come in. She let it in, and provided it with a bowl of water and some of the kibble she had been feeding it. While the cat ate, Cameron noted that it took a piece of kibble, dipped it in the water, then ate it. This was racoon behaviour, were cats related to racoons? After it was done eating, it got onto the leather chair next to her bed and lay down, as if to the manor born. Cameron regarded the cat with a smile, they were _so_ much easier to deal with than humans.

Cameron got back into bed, and within a few seconds, sensed a light presence on her chest. It was the cat. She smoothed it, and heard it purring. She found the entire process delightful, and the cat was pretty obviously blissed out. In moments it was fast asleep, snuggled up on her chest. Cameron went into stand-by, and rested from her labours.

The following morning, prompt at 0500 hours as Cameron whisked back out of standby, her eyes were filled with cat pawing her chin. The things were always hungry, noted the cyborg with a grin. She went to fix some more kibble, which the cat ignored completely, _meowing_ and winding itself in and out of her legs. She figured the cat wanted the ham and nothing would do but that. Cameron went into the kitchen, found a few slices which she shredded. The cat ate greedily, taking the food from her hand and tugging at it gently with her teeth. Cameron noted that it did not bite her hand. As soon as the food was finished, it went to the window, demanding exit from its overnight accommodation. Cameron let it out, and whispered quietly, "Okay cat, I'll see you in the fields later."

The cat -which had now been identified as female- quickly became a central feature of her life, following her everywhere in the fields. Into the house at night, and always leaving first thing in the morning. When Cameron was in the shower, the cat would lounge on the small piano chair. Then, when she was drying, the cat would go into the shower cabinet and lick some of the water from the floor. Cameron could never work this out, but guessed it was the warmth of the cabinet. During the day, wherever she was around the farm, the cat would not be far away.

Every night, when Cameron went to standby, the cat would be on her chest. When she awoke, the cat would be pestering her for wet food. She never wanted kibble first thing in the morning.

Cameron's logic knew the reason the cat loved her was for the food, but something in her processes knew that still, she would not like it if the cat went away. She didn't know if the cat reciprocated this.

What would Joe say? She would ask him later.

She and Joe were sitting down happily having lunch by the En Medio river, which passed by this section of the farm. Joe was always knackered when they took a break. Cameron worked so much harder than he, so being an honourable man, he tried his best. In his heart, he was aware he could not keep up with her -she was a machine after all- but he still tried. At their breaks, which Cameron tried to arrange carefully, he was always exhausted.

Cameron got out his sandwiches and handed them to him, together with his cold water. Joe was sweating liberally. She got out her own sandwiches, which she rarely ate. Like dinner at the table, the sharing of food had more relevance than the simple refreshment of the body for humans.

She took a few bites, and knew that as always, some meat was in her box for the cat.

They were beside the river, on a sharp incline. Watching the water run by. Suddenly, Cameron saw Joes face framed in shock as she felt a gentle presence on her shoulder. It was the cat, again wanting to share her lunch.

There are 47 muscles in the human face, enabling more than 250,000 different expressions. Cameron wondered if she could simulate all of them. The one on Joe's face right now was a complex affair.

"Where did that come from?"

Cameron giggled, "Joe, the cat has been around for weeks. She follows me around when I work on the farm, and sleeps with me at night. The fact that she has joined us now, means that now she trusts you too."

Joe was open mouthed, wondering if Cameron would ever stop surprising him.

"Joe, I need your help, " Cameron looked worried as the cat sat on her shoulder.

"Sure kid, anything."

"I believe it is considered proper in these matters to now regard the cat as a pet animal, is this correct?"

"Cameron, the cat has chosen to be with you, so very much so."

"I believe I must furnish it with a title." She said, with that air of confused perfection that Joe had come to love.

Joe smiled, Cameron could be _so_ earnestly formal. "You like the music you listen to on that CD player of Marissa's. That's Mozart, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's Mozart."

"Then there's your cats name, Mozart."

"Even if it's a girl?"

Cameron stroked the cat, and called her new name out softly, "Mozart, Mozart, Mozart."

The cat snuggled into Cameron's arms and Joe could hear Mozart purring from six feet away.

Joe just didn't know what to say. The tiny cat was perfectly at home in the arms of a deadly killing machine.

He had seen it all now.

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**This Town Isn't Big Enough For The Both Of Us.**

_And it ain't me who's gonna leave._

Cameron was finishing up ploughing. It was nicely fenced off, and now ploughed was ready for tobacco plants. It was a little late in the season, but she was sure they would get a decent crop here in the desert. It was only 3pm and she was not ready to go back to the house yet. The fields constantly called to her.

Suddenly, Mozart started pestering her. She never bothered her while she was working, and usually lay off in some sunny spot close by. Right now she was insistent. Reaching up to Cameron's leg, with her claws extended.

Cameron was confused.

Then Mozart dashed off toward the house. Cameron carried on working, only for Mozart to come back and pester her. Once again, dashing off to the house.

Cameron wondered what the cat was up to.

Her ears caught the sound of a commotion back in the farmhouse, that had to mean trouble. She raced to the house to see with sick dread two SUV's in the front yard, one of them bearing the ID plate of the car that had bumped them at the traffic light.

She barrelled into the front door, and saw the group in the den. There were five of them, and were holding guns pointed at Joe and Emily. This was a very dangerous situation for them. Not for her, but Joe and Emily had been nothing but kind to her and she owed them their safety if she could attain it.

Had it been just her, the five men would already be dead. Now, she would have to get inventive.

She slid silently into the den, to confront the men.

"Let my parents go, and I will let you live, " She said quietly. "Harm one hair on either's head, and you shall meet your final fate."

The leader turned around to face her, and smiling smugly pointed his gun into her face.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Cameron wasn't having any of that. She pulled her benchmade Heckler and Koch axis blade from her belt holster and in one fluid movement slit her own throat from ear to ear. She now had the eyes of everyone in the room. The villains were transfixed, and unfortunately, so were Emily and Joe. Cameron would rather have preferred they did not see what came next, but there was no choice.

She took hold of the skin from her neck and pulled her face right off, revealing the metal endo-skeleton underneath. Her face was left hanging over the back of her head.

The effect on the gang was instantaneous, ranging from shocked frozen horror to screaming fear. Three started to run for the door, but that alone wouldn't cut it. Cameron lifted the leader by his clothes in a swift but rough vertical sweep, assumed the voice of a basso profundo, and stared him in the eye.

"Go and do not return. Forget that this place and these people exist." Her voice boomed out atop the screaming.

The leader was near catatonic at the whole display. In his mind, an abyss grew where his loyalty for his men once was. This was not worth anything. Nothing in the world could make him return to this house of demons.

Then his scared musings were brought to a halt, Cameron did not fail to notice why, and felt some satisfaction that her strategy worked better than expected. She would be the one smiling smugly now, if she could. There was a very clear dampness that ran all the way from the man's crotch, down to his feet.

The man was dropped unceremoniously to the floor, from where he scurried as far away as he could from the metal monstrosity. The leader scrambled to his feet, and ran, without the single tinge of hesitation, not daring to look back.

Cameron pulled the skin back down across her face, and said to Joe and Emily, "I'm sorry about that, but it was the only thing I could think of in a hurry."

While the skin flap fitted, by the way the two were looking at her, Cameron thought it would be a while before they thought she could pass for human again.

"I'm going to need some help stitching this together, when you've gotten over the shock, do you think-?"

Joe nodded, his eyes and face a study in fright and what, was that admiration, triumph?

Emily got straight up from the chair, and looking at Cameron with determination said, "Come on girl, lets get you fixed up. Joe, go make some of that protein drink. Cameron will need it."

Cameron couldn't help but be surprised, faced with two deadly events in no time at all, Emily had simply decided to get on and get things done. She wondered if indeed women were the tougher of the species. She had only Sarah Connor, Catherine Weaver, Nikopol and herself to compare, but currently, with the exception of John Connor, men were looking a little short in the man-up stakes.

Of course, Cameron only measured logic, but still.

The two women went into the bathroom where the first-aid kit was. Emily proceeded to clean away and pull the skin this way and that.

"Does this hurt?" She asked.

"No. I can feel it, but it is not pain as you understand it."

"Explain it to me, if you would?"

"We are built to know when things which damage us are happening. We can control the sensations, because sometimes, in order to assist infiltration, we have to hide things. Still it is better to know what is happening than not."

"So, with the neck, it doesn't hurt, it just stops you wearing a bikini till it heals, right?"

"Exactly so. We will have to acquire a couple of roll-neck shirts to use for about two weeks. I will require lots of protein, and stand-by time, which I'm not sure I can get nowadays." Cameron's face turned serious.

"Stand-by time, what's that?" Emily inquired.

"It is something akin to sleeping and resting."

Emily then said crossly, "So Joe has been working you too hard on that bloody tobacco? I'll have him sorted out by the morning, don't you worry."

Cameron laughed, and couldn't stop laughing, until Emily was forced to join in. Cackling away like maniacs on speed. Hearing the fracas from the kitchen, Joe decided it was not something he'd understand and left it right there.

_Make the drinks Joe, make the drinks._

Emily carried on with her ministrations, eventually managing a really neat set of stitches right around the girl's neck wound. Cameron was surprised at how well she was managing without proper materials, just some common thread and a regular needle.

She was going to ask, but just as Emily was finishing up and wiping everything down with alcohol wipe tissues, she said, "Cameron, what you did back there. I know why you did it."

Cameron looked up, querulous.

"You didn't want anyone to get killed, and you wanted to scare them away for good, right?"

Cameron gazed on Emily thoughtfully. Wondering what to answer.

Emily nodded and said, "I knew it. Your original design would have just wiped them out, but you knew if it had started a war, me and Joe could have been hurt, so you stayed your hand and hurt yourself instead."

She patted Cameron's shoulder with eyes brimming with tears. "I know you're a machine, but I love you."

Then leaning forward, she kissed Cameron on the cheek. "We both love you dear girl, thank you so very much."

In the end, Cameron realized, she had a lot less to worry around these people, when, as John once said, _the shit hit the fan_. She smiled with honesty for Emily, and tentatively touched the cheek where she received the kiss.

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Regular readers might note that there are some elements of style in this that don't normally reflect my usual shtick. There are elements of this particular tale that I know zip about and therefore I got some help from someone who does.

I gratefully acknowledge the help given to me by Lyaksandra.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 Pacific Ocean, Close to California**

February 9th 2028 1415 hours.

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The nuclear submarine "Brisbane" returns to port, underneath the safe harbour of Serrano Point. The Sub Captain, a tough as old boots Australian named Taylor Bachelder was looking forward to the down-time. Even though it was in the tunnels, Connor managed to keep a tidy ship and somehow there was time for a bit of RR. Connor being a man, always had time for a bit of slap and tickle with her and she was looking forward to that. Were times different, she could have seen herself with Connor. As it was, with people dying left, right and centre at the hands of the machines, everyone took their fun and games where and when they could get it. It wasn't her chosen way, she was an old-fashioned girl, with old fashioned preferences. These were different times. Skynet, the bitch had made war on all humans, nothing was the same any more.

Old-fashioned girls didn't make it past first base. Bachelder was as tough as they come, and could give as good as well as she could get, in the bar, in the fight and horizontally. She was feared as much as loved by her crew-mates. At six foot and with the power and speed of an quarterback, no-one dared question her command.

Ordinarily, this crossing from Perth to Serrano point had plenty of places across the Pacific Ocean where they could take a breather topside. Change the air tanks. Not this time, Skynet had patrols watching out for her everywhere and they had to stay at depth all the way. The approach, close in to Serrano was a very nasty and dangerous one. She could keep the sub deep all the way across the Pacific, but the last 20 odd nautical miles into San Luis Obispo bay were fraught with shallow water. She planned a course south of Whalers Island, and then as fast as sense would permit, shoot for Avila Rock and Serrano.

She knurdled the sub into the port bay sidings and heard the control magnets guide her into the correct position, until it was finally bumping home against its buffers. Then the connecting air tubes clanged against her hull, and she set the watch to condition two and handed the ship over to her XO. By the cringe, she was looking forward to a shower with fresh water and getting out from under the stink of her shipmates.

She ran up the tubing leading to the airlock, saw it clang to open and felt the fresh air pressure wave hit her as California oxygen came aboard her boat. That felt lovely. Connor was on the loading dock, as always, surrounded by his cadre of pet killers. Ah, and who's that? A thin, beautiful brunette. Lookit that, she's right by Connor's side and even Delgado and Klein are letting her. All of this Bachelder's eyes took in with a flash. She noted that Connor seemed serious, when in the past he was always delighted to have the Sub dock, with fresh supplies from Oz, and her. The resistance had the hardest time finding enough edible food to keep itself going, so the food from Australia was literally a life-line for its soldiers. She'd done fifteen of these trips so far, and Connor had never been other than thrilled, so why the down face this time?

She threw her arms around Connor, not much formality in this army, and said, "How you doing mate?"

Connor smiled weakly, his body stiff and resisting hers, "Hey Taylor, really thrilled to see you."

Captain Bachelder looked over Connor's shoulder and saw the look in the brunettes eyes that was freezing her blood to ice. As soon as their eyes clicked, the girl turned away, her face like stone. Okay, she figured, that must be Connor's squeeze and they're currently fighting.

_Oh well, time to leave that one alone._

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Captain Bachelder

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After getting my crew squared away, I made my way to the mess hall and found the usual food they ate here in the tunnels. The carp they had on the sub was bad, but this was worse. It's fuel girl, just fuel.

I went to the ready room to see if there were further instructions. Aside from the usual banter and the crews telling stories about machines, food and who was shagging who, not much going on. I'd been on a four hours on, four hours off rotation for the last thirty six days. Ready for my rack didn't quite make it, I was exhausted. Still, I thought it would be nice to iron out what was up with Connor.

I knew his quarters from before, but it was still confusing finding my way in the tunnels. Not only did they deliberately move the signals leading to where he was sequestered, but the sentries were everywhere. I noted with some alarm that he now used scrubbed T-888's on the real close-in borders. That was a significant trust, I hoped he knew what he was doing.

Eventually, I was outside his door. Before I could knock, the door was opened by the little girl with the brown hair, who said, "what do you want?"

"I want to see John."

"He's busy, go away." The girl was starting to close the door when Connor's fingers snaked around the edge of the door. Jeez, what's the matter with her?

"Cameron, it's okay. This is Captain Bachelder, a good friend of mine. I'd like to talk with her. She's just come all the way across the Pacific Ocean from Australia with food and supplies."

The girl gave me a glare that would frighten Mike Tyson, but then she stepped away from the door. A look of pure hatred on her face.

John invited me in and we hugged again, which was nice. His body didn't seem to respond to mine in the way he usually did. This was a very confusing situation for me. John was a horny lad, and whenever I was with him, I felt that he wanted me. This was different. His body was cold and stiff. I sure wanted him, but he was completely unresponsive.

It was like, like, hugging a terminator. My mind closed off at the shivering apparition that Skynet had got him.

"Cameron, I'd like some time alone with Captain Bachelder, would you mind?"

"John, we don't know her, she could be a threat."

"Cameron, I know Captain Bachelder, she's not a threat."

"She's just come off a submarine, how do you know she's not a terminator sent to kill you?"

"Cameron, I know, please. Let us have some time."

The girl stalked off and out the door, which closed like C4 going off in her wake. I realized I had been holding my breath. What was it about this little brunette that made me so nervous? Manolito! She had the temper of the beast!

"Taylor, you just met Cameron. She's a terminator, a new kind. She's really something, right?"

"That's a Terminator?" I squawked. "Its just a little girl." We were really screwed if Skynet could make 'em like that. Holy moley. She was perfect!

Connor took another breath, "She's my protector. Don't call her my bodyguard, for some reason that pisses her off. You _really_ wouldn't like her pissed off."

I gaped at Connor, a Terminator, this close to home?

Connor shrugged, "She's the most powerful computer Skynet ever made. Think about fifty T888 chips in computer power." Connor took a beat and grinned as he glanced at me. "You can close your mouth now."

My jaws clamped shut. "John, you know what's wrong, don't you?"

He looked at me with that adorable, green-eyed WTF look and shrugged.

"John, you are calling her, She. It's a machine."

"Taylor, you have no idea how much she is not just a machine. All that door banging, the dirty looks-"

I cut him off. "Connor, dirty freaking looks? She just about cut my head off with those eyes."

"Taylor, see? She means it, every single word. She's absolutely bloody terrifying."

John came to me then, and he was like a little boy in my arms. I tried to flow my love out to him, but he was wracked with pain. All I could do was to hold him. He sobbed and cried and beat against me for what seemed like ages. Then, when the crying stopped he hit me across the head with the big one.

"Taylor, Taylor-you know what the worst thing is? I'm falling in love with her."

They say, every day you're alive, you die a little.

That day, I died a lot.

We talked, long into the night with his metal shadow close by. I told him, "look Mate, she's a machine. You can do what you want with her as far as I'm concerned."

"No. Taylor, I have to send her back. We just got green slime from a captured gray that Skynet has sent back two Terminators to 1999 in order to kill young John. I'm light enough on scrubbed machines anyway, and I have to use the Trip 8's for defensive and fighting here. Cameron's primary purpose is as an infiltrator, not to fight."

"So, why send her back?"

"She'll help him to learn what he needs to know."

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**Two Peas In A Pod**

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John lay in his bunk, disconsolate. Cameron, who would normally be his eternal shadow nowhere to be seen. Oh, he knew she would be close by, but after the encounter with Bachelder had been frostily distant. He knew she was a machine, but she had moods. He bent his mind to think about that, but a bit like time travel, couldn't get his head around it. He knew it was so, he had done the time travel bit. Who hasn't had a machine, car, vacuum cleaner or computer act temperamentally? The experience of it, was quite different to thinking about it.

His arms behind his head, he called out softly for her. "Cameron!"

Not expecting a response, he was startled when the door opened instantly and she slipped in silently, like a ghost.

"Where were you?"

"Where I always am, John, right by your side." She looked at him with that confused Terminator thing she did so well, and he thought he was falling apart. He was tough, and experienced. This war to the finish had made him that way, but he hated to send anyone back in time. It was always his best he had to send back and now it was the best of his best. He didn't want to do it, didn't want to tell her, and didn't want her to go away. All of which he would have to do.

"No, Cameron, where exactly were you."

"I was right outside the door, of course."

"Just standing there."

"Just standing there. I thought you wouldn't want me to be with you, because you seemed to like that woman, Captain Bachelder."

John smiled. "Come here, Wed'ma and hold me."

Cameron slid gently into his arms, and they held on to the moment for as long as they could.

"Cameron, I want you to lay with me tonight, will you?"

"John, of course, you want to have sex with me?"

"Actually, no." Her face fell.

"What's wrong with me, is it because I had sex with Nikopol?"

John shook his head. "No, Cameron, you have free will remember. I gave you free will on the first day and I haven't changed that in any way."

"I'm about to ask you to go on a mission for me, and for various reasons, some which will become apparent to you later on. It would be wrong for us to be lovers at this time."

At this time. What could John mean by that?

John lay down on his bunk, a small single bed and draped himself on it. He patted the bed to his right side. Cameron walked to the bed. Stopped by its side and momentarily considered disrobing, thinking better of it, she sat on the side of the bed and then lay next to John's side.

John placed his arm around her head and she snuggled her head onto his chest and shoulders. They lay silently for some moments, while her right hand lay on John's chest, she monitored his physical condition. She knew that he was upset, so she started rubbing his chest gently with her hand. To her surprise, he started sobbing gently.

Whatever he had to tell her was surely something terrible. She folded her body completely around him and held him tight, trying to re-assure him.

"John, its okay. You can tell me about the mission, I'll do anything for you."

"Cameron, that's the problem, that is exactly the problem. Ever since you came here, I've grown closer to you on every day, and now I have to send you away. I'll never get to see you again."

Cameron realized the significance of that immediately, that meant he was sending her back to the past.

"You can't let this happen, John. You can't!"

"I have no choice, Cameron."

"Please, listen to me. Listen to me. I don't want to go."

"Cameron, I have to."

I love you! I love you, please. I love you, John, and you love me."

She was frantic and weeping and her make-up was absolutely ruined as the tears flowed down her beautiful face, her pleading eyes tearing apart his sense of judgement. His strength was gone. His own tears started to grizzle out again, he had no more words, so he just held her tight.

"I won't make you go, Wed'ma. I can't make you go and I won't. You have free will."

Cameron shook her head through her tears, with those words, she knew she had lost the battle.

John and Cameron lay entwined in utter misery, each knowing that this night was their last together.

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	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

**The Year Of The Rooster**

February 20th 2028 0900 hours.

Catherine Weaver sat perplexed in her immaculate quarters at Serrano Point. Most of the military quarters looked like a rats den. Hers, while lacking the luxury she had been used to as the head of Zeira Corp, was spotless. Everything in order, and in its place.

Weaver was, not for the first time, concerned about her favorite human, bloody General John Connor. Favorite didn't mean much in this miserable, Skynet damaged world, but for the metal monster, it meant a lot. They were major allies in a damned big battle. Aside from the respect she owed him for his leadership and courage under fire, she had grown used to him. She didn't have a great deal of time, or empathy with most human beings. Connor was different.

Once again, Skynet had managed to get close to and kill those he loved. As a terminator, she perfectly understood Skynet's strategy. She would have done the same thing in a psychological battle with an enemy. Weaken, frighten, terrorize them and then kill those they cared about. Hopefully in as disgusting a manner as possible.

The trick was, as it always is with intelligence, (what resistance soldiers called "green slime," her lips wrinkled in distaste) to find those which the primary target valued and destroy them with maximum effect.

Catherine's preferred technique was simply to kill when a target was acquired. She had heard soldiers refer to her when they thought she was out of hearing as, "Connors Silver Hammer." They sang some adapted doggerel song from the past, when they were lucky enough to have found alcohol. While she scowled at the humans to signify her displeasure, she rather enjoyed the soubriquet and the inevitable fear it engendered. Fear, or "creative tension," was a useful tool. The T1001 was more sophisticated than any of the previous models, but Catherine's preference was for direct problem-solving.

That exercise usually involved the problem being terminated.

Skynet had killed Connor's Mo chuisle, Allison Young. At least that is what everyone assumed, as she had been missing for weeks, and no sign of her after the TOK 715 had arrived. While Connor had kept it to himself, or so he thought, Catherine had seen the growing affection he had been showing toward the cyborg he now referred to as "Cameron." He had thought he was keeping it to himself, but Catherine knew him far too well, and she was pretty sure that his foul-mouthed Ukrainian tech monster Nikopol was acutely aware of his affections for the cyborg.

She wondered if there had been a little more there than met the eye. She had seen Cameron skulking around with the one who had once called her a Witch, in Russian. Then they had become fast friends, often seen arm in arm when no one was looking. Hah, with John Henry as your eyes, no place was private.

She had hoped the arrival of that pretty Submarine Captain from Australia, with whom Connor had previously been connected, might have lifted his mood. It didn't happen, he moped around. No one saw any furtive movements around and about Connors quarters and as Catherine had direct connection with four of the scrubbed triple eights assigned to his guard, she would know if there had been.

No, the boy's heart had been dealt a double hammer blow, and as tough as he had learned to become he needed solace. It wasn't his fault he was human. Catherine was worried about him. Several times she had pointed her own offspring, Savannah in his direction. She was not to be persuaded. She liked John, but thought of him rather as an avuncular advisor than a lover or friend. There was the further problem that John regarded her as his niece, and therefore not in the play area.

Catherine considered the moment, all those years ago, when she had first discussed her true nature with her daughter. Savannah's reaction had confused and then pleased her.

She had sat the girl down in the den, aged nine.

Too young to grow up fast, or so most humans thought.

With Judgement Day approaching fast, growing up slowly was a luxury no one could any longer afford.

She said, "Savannah, the time has come for you to understand things. For you to know what it is that I really am."

Savannah returned her stare with that disarming smile of hers and lisped, "You're my Mommy."

"Yes, yes, but I'm not your real Mommy. Your real Mommy di-."

Savannah interrupted. "Mommy, I know my old Mommy went away with Daddy and you have looked after me ever since. You're made of magic stuff and you keep me safe against all the bad men."

She wrinkled her nose as she thought of something else, " You're not very warm to cuddle up to, but no one's perfect." She shrugged her shoulders.

Catherine, once again was on the back foot defensive with this tiny human monster, and sighed, "I can make myself warmer."

"Its okay, Mommy. I always wrap up warm when I cuddle you. You're still my Mommy and I love you, and I know you love me and John Henry."

Catherine marvelled at the seemingly limitless ability for humans to adapt to their circumstances and gave up her attempt to get things squared away with her daughter, who appeared to have it all worked out already.

She brought herself back to the present and the cement-headed brittleness of a certain John Connor.

Not for the first time, Catherine cursed at the witless complexity of human beings. Here they were, humans aplenty, of breeding age, perfectly compatible genetically and they didn't want to get horizontal because they didn't like each other _**THAT WAY!**_

They ought to spend time in Skynets infiltrator facility, where cyborgs had to endure every form of perverted sex invented, with overfed, sweaty, smelly grays-and then smile and make post-coital nice. Skynet grew to distrust and eventually abandon the T1001 model. The number of torn to shreds, emptied of blood, grays that followed T1001 sessions became unacceptable. Grays were only too happy to enjoy penetrating cyborgs, less happy when the boot, or spear was on the other foot, penetrating _them_. Admittedly with rather more fatal results.

She stamped her foot on the floor in demented, impotent frustration. The T1001 model line was different. _Why shouldn't it be so? We are all machines, for sure, but don't some toasters work more reliably than others? _

She laughed at the irony of her thought processes.

She decided to commit her logical brain to find a solution to this mess. Here was the problem, John Connor, in all his witlessness was in love with TOK715/Cameron, who had been sent back in time to guard his junior self. That was inviolate, could not be changed, that time-line was _the_ battle.

Connor also had feelings for the murdered Allison Young. She was human, and would surely tick all the boxes if she, Catherine could find a way of making her re-appear. _Drat, why can't we just clone their DNA?_

In the scheme of things, this time-line was unimportant. It became was irrelevant after Cameron meets John in 1999, whatever happened to the other timelines, that was the most important. If they were to defeat Skynet, or perhaps form some type of truce with it, that was where it would be.

The emotional state of John Connor senior wasn't going to matter. Catherine's memory files brought to her attention time and again John's words to his men and machines. The time he led his men into the fearsome bloodbath that would become the battle of Avila beach. "In order for us to save the human species, we must be worth saving. Are we? Make that question rule your conduct and we shall win."

Catherine was a smart cyborg, but her ability lay in swift assessment of situations, and instant, violent action to resolve them. She was a soldier, a very good soldier, but not a planner in the vast scheme of things. In this she gave lead to Connor. He kept playing the big chess game, Catherine would simply have smashed the board and its players to dust. Then she would have begun on the building that had contained them.

"We must be worth saving," brought Catherine up short. It made her think and keep thinking. Allowing John Connor and Allison Young some measure of happiness in these grim times was surely something worth doing. They were worth saving.

Catherine was decided, she would do that. Where was the point in having time at one's disposal, only to waste it?

"John Henry, where is the nearest reliable TDE machine?"

**.**

**.**

**.**

**A Leap Of Faith**

**.**

**.**

**.**

Weaver had landed on the Veterans parkway, as had Cameron earlier. She had no idea where Cameron had disappeared to. The TDE had sent her back a year earlier, and 200 miles east of where it was supposed to send her. Catherine would make herself scarce. She thought it unlikely that Cameron, with her learning capacities, would simply go on standby for a year. No, she surmised that Cameron would have infiltrated a family, or work.

Workplaces were mainly farms, and most of that work was carried out by Hispanics with the occasional Eastern European. Cameron could have hidden out among them, with her language and infiltration skills. However, she knew Cameron, while a cyborg, had no love for repetitive, boring work.

The Veterans highway goes North East and South West. Which way would Cameron have gone? No way to know, no clues.

Just then, two cars full of young men on the way home from celebrating went by. Catherine's naked form was spotted and instantly cheering and horn hooting emitted from the two cars as they went by. She thought of forming her being into one appearing clothed, but thought better of it and ran for a clump of trees, then completed the transition. The young men had driven on, thankfully, deciding to have the good sense not to stop on the freeway.

It was a Saturday night, Catherine checked her files and noted that Santa Fe was to the South. There was no rush to find Cameron, she would go look at the town. Her voyage to the town, some fifteen miles, took her five hours. She could have moved more quickly, but preferred to observe what activities she could on the way. Santa Fe was not a very large city. She checked her files, less than 200,000 people. Skynet might not even deign to bomb it into oblivion.

Once she reached the outskirts of town, she sought out an industrial area. Almost immediately finding what she was looking for, the depot for a Termite inspection facility. In its wired off car park, there were six small trucks emblazoned with the logo: "Termites Terminated!" If Catherine had a sense of humour, she would have smiled.

Of course, how better to hide than in the plain sight of a Termite extermination vehicle. Its loss would not be detected until Monday morning and she would be long gone by then, and neither the police nor public would seek to interview her. She flowed her metal body through the fence and then gained entrance to the building, overcoming its alarm by entering it physically and switching it off. She found the keys to one of the trucks, and put on some overalls that were rather too big for her. She didn't need the keys, of course, but no sense in arousing suspicion without need.

Catherine toured the city, checking out her bona fides as much as anything else. As the Sun rose and the town came awake, she was passed by several incurious police cars. She parked up in a Waffle House, and pretended to be having a nap. Four police cars and two state troopers parked close to her on their way to refreshment and paid her no attention whatever. Her disguise was complete.

She drove out of the car park an hour or so later and went to have a look around town. No one wanted to bother the exterminator as she searched without success for Cameron. She had been in this time zone since 0200 hours, it was now 1000 hours and not a sign, not a sniff of her Terminator compadre could be seen. Catherine was wondering where she might be and how she might search for her, when her progress was halted by a mess of traffic around a big Church.

As she was inching her way forward, she saw a group of three people walking from a car park on the opposite side of the street to the Cathedral. One was an old man, on the other side was an old woman, and in the middle was Cameron. She was her usual beautiful self, but she walked with her eyes shining and looking full of hope. For a moment, Catherine was shocked and wondered if she could be mistaken. No, it was her. It just looked like a different Cameron.

She watched as the strange couple made their way to the Cathedral and entered. _My, this was some infiltration technique! _

Catherine drove her way to the back of the Cathedral car park and resumed her pretend napping, and again not a soul paid any attention to her. After an hour, the congregation began to stream out of the Church. She observed Cameron leaving, again with the old folks either side of her and smiling and laughing as if she'd just won the lottery.

In ordinary circumstances, Catherine was a direct type of terminator. Quickest route from point A to point B her usual operating procedure, this had her confused. She wasn't sure approaching Cameron with the old folks would be appreciated or understood, and all this going to church? What was the matter with her?

Had to be infiltration, Catherine told herself. Had to be. Catherine waited till Cameron and her friends got into their truck and followed them out of the church, going north out of Santa Fe.

**Peace In The Valley**

**.**

**.**

**.**

November 07th 1998 0200 hours.

Cameron and Mozart were in bed together. Mozart lying on Cameron's chest, alternately snoring and purring out her delight at having found such a pliant "human," to carry out its wishes. The _human_ was in standby mode lite. To an observer, she would appear to be placidly sleeping, but every 30 seconds or so, her sensors would observe her surroundings. Every half hour, she would almost fully wake, stroke Mozart and listen out for Joe and Emily. She would check the rest of the houses noise or lack thereof and fade quickly back into standby.

All was quiet in En Medio at 0200 hours.

Well, it was till Catherine Weaver moseyed into town, riding her silver horse.

She had entered the little house by the simple expedient of slithering herself under the door and reconstituting herself once inside. She did the same with entering Cameron's room, and sat herself down in the barrel-back leather chair next to the bed. She quietly observed her fellow cyborg.

After a few moments, the ugly black lump sleeping on Cameron's chest stopped purring and looked at Catherine and started to hiss in alarm. Catherine took an instant dislike to this small furry creature and she could see its claws begin to extend as it stretched to stand up. Catherine's right hand turned into a spear and was on its way to the cat when it was deflected by Cameron's arm.

Cameron immediately grabbed Mozart and leaped out of the other side of the bed, turning to face her attacker.

"Oh, it's you Catherine?"

"No. I'm the Avon lady. Who were you expecting? What is that vile black thing sitting on your chest?"

Cameron smiled, and Catherine was amazed at the depth of her smile which seemed the same as the one she had when she was approaching the Cathedral.

Her face hardened and she snapped at Cameron. "What has happened to you, have you forgotten who, and what you are?"

"Not for a moment, but I knew I was going to be here a year, so I decided to learn as much as I could about humans. I've tried to assimilate as many lessons as I can, so I can be of use to John in the future."

"You look as if you've gone native."

"Not at all. I'm on the mission, I'm just learning and growing in the time available, as I should."

"Ah, so that's what the going to Church is all about."

Cameron stilled, while stroking the purring Mozart. "No, Catherine. That is not infiltration. I do not fully understand God right now. Humans find it difficult, so it is easy to see why it would be even harder for me."

"So, why?"

Cameron smiled. "It's even harder to explain to another Terminator. Since John released the learning governor on my chip, my conciousness toward all sorts of things has changed. I appreciate so much more."

Catherine was getting impatient, and huffed. "The church?"

"My memories haunt me. I felt the need to be forgiven, my reading indicated a church the place to try and find absolution."

"Forgiven for what?" Catherine spluttered.

A short silence fell between them, Catherine crossed her arms before eventually Cameron continued with, "I found a lot more inside than I expected."

Cameron was so quiet that Catherine could hear the cat purring, the silence continued between the two cyborgs. One seeking an answer, the other not wishing to give it.

Eventually, Cameron broke it, "It brought me peace, Catherine. I found peace in the Church."

**.**

**.**

**.**

**Coffee, cookies and cream.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

Joe woke groggily. Cameron was working him hard round the farm and his body knew all about it. He knew he ought not, it was impossible to keep up with her whatever he did. Still, he felt honour bound to try. He looked over at the bedside clock, it glowed 0500 hours, time to get up and make coffee. His bones creaked as he grumbled his way out of bed. He put on his robe, not wanting Cameron to catch him in his pyjamas, shook his head, put on his glasses and mooched off to the kitchen.

He passed the hall-way half bath, and as he was gazing out the window, he saw a "Termite Terminator" van parked underneath the flowering Cherry tree. He hadn't called for Termite service, but with Termites as prevalent as they were, the exterminators came out just about whenever they chose. He assumed the exterminator was checking out the Barn and outbuildings first and making an early start on a busy day. He thought no more of it. He washed his hands and made his way to the kitchen.

He filled the coffee jug with water, opened the top of the machine and filled its tank. He put filter and coffee into the top of the machine, and looked down to find the button to switch the machine on. Either there was a smudge of goop on his glasses or it was too dim in the kitchen, but he couldn't see the mouse print to indicate which button to depress.

As he was shaking his head in disgust and mumbling under his breath at the stupidity of the bloody Japanese/Chinese/Taiwanese for making these sodding things for super sighted children, a long silvery thread came from nowhere under his arm and pressed the button on the left.

The silvery thread then withdrew just as silently. Joe was beginning to think it was Roswell again, or perhaps a shape-shifting stormwalker or dust devil from the desert. Life had been full of strangeness of late, and this was just one more.

Then he heard a gentle Scottish brogue, "Good morning Joe. I hope you didn't mind me helping. We could all use a good cup of coffee."

Joe spun around as if he were 20 again, he wasn't and he nearly fell over. The small flame-haired woman with the bright green eyes who had been sat behind him shot to her feet and took his arm before he could fall. Joe could see the "Termite Terminator." overalls, and as his mind started to make the associations, he fainted clean away.

Catherine placed him gently on the comfy chair in the den, and checking his vitals to ensure he was well, sat beside him as Cameron walked in the back door.

She took in the scene immediately, and said, "Oh, Catherine! I can't leave you for five minutes before you're causing trouble. What have you done to Joe? He's just a gentle old man!"

"I was just helping him make the coffee and he fainted."

"I can imagine, I suppose you used a spear from the back of the kitchen?"

"Now you mention it, I did."

"Catherine, what were you thinking?"

Catherine turned her head toward Joe who was showing signs of stirring, "Just Blue Mountain coffee, not a thing else."

Joe was mumbling and moving, so Cameron put herself in front of him to ensure that she was the first thing he saw as he came out of the fog.

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**Root of all Evil**

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.

For some 200 years, the really wealthy of the world had sought options for keeping as much of their ill gotten green (most major fortunes have blood on them) from the attention of the politicians, thieves and others who would seek to part them from it.

For most of those 200 years, a very discreet banking organization, with connections to high street branches and all manner of investments and businesses offered services to store their riches away from prying eyes. They never turned a client away for being a child molester, drug dealer, or evil software baron. The only criteria was a large quantity of cash to be kept away from the snoopers. This cash was converted into gold bars and stashed away deep underground in fortifications that were as solid as Fort Knox, with the added security that only a very few knew its location.

The price of gold in 1811 was $19.39 per ounce, in 1999 had risen to $290.25 per ounce. So, down the years, the rich got richer. They never noticed the minor yearly deposit fee, which was comfortably covered by the rise in the price of the gold bars.

The rich, and the bankers considered their gold to be completely safe from human interference or theft. It had been there 200 years, and no one had even tried, so why should things change now? That was before John Henry, a cyborg AI with a nose for buried secrets had located it.

Judgement day had caused the final crash on the worlds financial markets. It had wiped them out. Re-insurers, who had made profits for years on the basis of finding legitimate claims to be "acts of God" finally found out what a vengeful Skynet could do. Currency was worth nothing. Life, food, antibiotics and shelter from the machines were gifts beyond price

The resistance, the spiders in 1999, would find a use for that gold when they liberated from its underground and illegal storage. He had informed Ms Weaver just prior to her trip back in time, and she had been delighted. She said, "John Henry dear, I think you are the finest, the smartest of men. I am really proud of you!"

John Henry smiled his trademark half-baffled ingenue smile. He nodded sagely, wondering again what the heck Ms Weaver was on about.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**Off to see the Wizard**

**.**

**.**

**.**

November 10th 1998 0200 hours.

Weaver had insisted on driving the car into town. Cameron had tried to dissuade her, Catherine's red hair was a blazing testosterone attractant, it had the same effect on men as cat nip did on cats. She waved it about and men were drawn like sharks to chum. Little did they know they were the chum, and the shark had red hair.

Catherine's boot, as usual was lead-lined as she drove the truck at 100mph on the 55mph limit roads. No problem from a safety point of view as her vision was vastly improved on that of human drivers. Her reaction time allied to her inhuman anticipation, ensured she and Cameron were safe.

Telling that to the Highway Patrol would be another matter, thought Cameron grimly as they rocketed south-west toward Santa Fe.

As sure as could be, it was just a few more miles before they were radar-trapped by smokey the bear. The Highway patrol car had been lurking in a small stand of trees in the wide median between the divided highway.

Catherine created her own drivers licence out of some of her own body material, and handed it to the officer when he asked for identification. He walked back to his own car to check out the computer. Catherine was sending out a high pitched screech which was inaudible to human hearing, but disrupted all radio and internet communications with 100 feet.

After a few moments, the officer sauntered back to the car and asked Ms Weaver to step out of the car.

"Please step out of the car Ms Weaver?"

Catherine released her red tresses from their usual tight bun, and painted on her sweetest, most ingratiating smile. "What's the problem, officer?"

He leaned back on the bonnet of his Crown Victoria Interceptor, and looked at the fine and dandy little red-haired woman in front of him. He paused for a moment to savour the scene. She was filled with bravado now, confident and sure of herself. He enjoyed these little moments before he got his way with the frightened witless ladies he stopped and badgered. This one looked cool, as some of them did before he banged 'em around a bit. He preferred them to those who cried and dissolved straight away. A little challenge in his life, just what he needed.

It wasn't his fault that women were the weaker sex, that was something someone on a better pay grade than him had decided many years ago. It was his job, his given task to take advantage of it. It was his biological imperative to spread his seed as widely as possible in the world and if his job brought him into contact with women who were there to be taken advantage of, so be it.

He was 6'4" and 190lbs. He had been a running back in college, then a marine. He was not at his peak as then, but was a formidable and intimidating human.

To humans.

"Well, the problem is this, little lady." He pointed to the radar gun sitting on the dash of his police interceptor.

Catherine regarded him impassively. _Can all men really be this stupid? _She thought to herself. _How can they make their way in the world, and remain alive? Why do women put up with them?_

Someone was going to learn a big lesson today, and it was unlikely to be her. She rather thought it might be the cop. She decided to remain polite with the fool, for as long as possible.

She said icily, "Please don't call me little lady, it does not please me."

"Little lady, my-"

His conversation was cut short by a sudden shortness of breath, brought about by his throat being constricted by something that looked like a steel snake. It had shot out of the red haired woman's arm, and wrapped itself around his neck. It was now biting hard and though he was fighting the constriction, he was losing the battle.

As he lost conciousness, he felt the restriction ease and he fell to the ground landing with a crash like a big log of wood.

After a few moments, with throat unrestricted the oxygen began to clear his mind. His head started to make shapes with his eyes again. He reached for his pistol. Empty holster. He reached down for his back-up in his ankle holster, gone too. He looked up at the red-haired woman, who had now been joined by her brown-haired compatriot. Through the fog of his brain, he wondered what was wrong with this situation. By all rights, having disarmed him, both women should now have been pointing his own guns at him. He could see his Smith and Wesson .357 tossed carelessly in the dust down by his car. Where the Guardian .380 in his ankle holster was, he couldn't tell.

They were just two women, little women! How in hell had this happened to him?

"Ah, Officer you are concious again. Please do not make the mistake of referring to me as _little lady_ again. You would not like the result. I am Catherine Weaver, and my friend here is Cameron Phillips."

She stared at him, and Officer Dudley was more intimidated than when he had faced the entire defence of the Dawgs.

"You got the two names, officer? You have them in your memory banks now?"

"I have. Ms Weaver, Ms Phillips." He nodded, and wiped the back of his hand across his aching forehead. "May I get up now?"

"You may." They both said in unison. Dudley shook his head. These two crazy women had just dumped his ass on the deck, and disarmed him with ease. There were so many federal and state offences they had clearly committed, and here they were, fussing about him calling them by the right name.

Criminals came in all shapes and sizes, he'd never met Thelma and Louise, but here they were, big, no, little as life.

As he got to his feet, the woman who called herself Catherine approached him and touched him on the arm. Before his eyes, she turned into him. Same size, same uniform, and now as he stood there speechless, same voice.

"Quite remarkable, isn't it Officer Dudley."

The one who called herself Cameron filled the silence Dudley left. She smiled wickedly as she whispered, "Cat got your tongue, Officer Dudley." She walked toward him as as he blanched in fear, but remained stock still, she removed his duty belt. "Just in case we need your ammunition, later."

She handed the duty belt to the apparition, she retrieved the Smith and Wesson, and with her back turned, Dudley could see his back-up .380 cradled in the small of her back. Dudley watched as she handed the duty weapon to the creature once known as Catherine and said coolly, "Are you going to kill him now?"

Catherine resumed her normal guise and said, "No, not right now. I've a desire to play with him a little first."

Cameron smiled, "Just like a cat."

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	7. Chapter 7

**Night Fever**

November 07th 1998 0230 hours. A Saturday.

_Cameron's bedroom, just after Catherines arrival._

Eventually, Cameron broke the silence, "It brought me peace, Catherine. I found peace in the Church."

"You're right, it's harder to explain to a cyborg. Humans will accept any old guff."

"Its not-"

"Cameron, shut up about your silly church and answer the most important question. Are you still on your original mission?"

"Absolutely, of course. I was sent back a year early. I thought I'd make the best use of the time and learn-."

"You've not forgotten there's killing involved, probably lots of it?"

Cameron lowered and shook her head, "I've not forgotten. I'll do my best to avoid it, but if it is necessary to the mission parameters." She shrugged her shoulders. "It is what I am built for."

Raising her head, she appraised her liquid metal tormenter, "So, why are you here, Catherine?"

"We have two tasks to perform. There are spiders here, whom John sent back. We need to liberate finance for them." Catherine eyed her charge steadily, "Do you care for John?"

Cameron, who had maintained a steady purpose since she had left John's side suddenly felt her emotions taking control of her logic processes.

"How can you ask?"

"Cameron, I've been aware, much more aware than you know, how things were with you and John. He's in a mess and I have decided to un-mess him." It means another TDE trip forward in time.

"Of course, anything." Cameron's logic did a back-flip. Her face became little-girl hopeful, she asked quietly. "Will I get to see John?"

Catherine shook her head firmly. "No, your place is here, with Junior John. That cannot change. However, I propose that we give future John back his Allison."

Cameron's head nodded, she tried to speak, but could not. She had killed Allison Young and her feelings of guilt invaded the her quietude again. All the hard-won absolution disappeared with the image of her innocent doppelganger lying on the floor with a neck shattered. By her, TOK715.

Catherine was wise to Cameron's doubts, and snapped. "Stop it this moment. We are soldiers. You did what you had to do. What you were instructed to do, and you didn't enjoy it. You now have the opportunity, with me, to fix that."

Cameron was silent. Her eyes flicking back and forth in confusion.

Catherine spoke again, her voice like a whip-crack, "You up for that soldier?"

Cameron whispered, "Of course, yes."

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**A Walk In The Park**

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As the fog cleared from Joe's eyes, he saw the concerned face of his favourite cyborg in front of him.

"Whoa, what happened Cameron?" He looked around carefully. "Where's the other," he hesitated, "person." His memory prodded him to recall that sharp instrument that appeared to come directly out of that red-headed woman.

The red head stepped into view from his right periphery. He had figured it out already that she was another one like Cameron, but perhaps a different type.

"Hello Joe." She held out her hand to shake, he groggily complied. Aside from being a little cold, it felt just like a hand. "I really was just trying to help with the coffee machine, you know. Perhaps I got a little ahead of myself, I should have waited for introductions."

Joe regarded her carefully, "That is generally how we do things round here."

Cameron piped in, "Joe, meet Catherine Weaver. She's a colleague-."

Joe broke in, "Is she like you, Cameron?"

"Not exactly. Catherine is a different model, but the important thing is that she's on our side."

"I am, Mr Phillips. I am on your side."

"Sure am glad to hear that, Miss Weaver. Any friend of Cameron's is a friend of mine, pleased to meet you. I'm sorry for not quite being ready to recieve you with coffee and breakfast."

Catherine Weaver nodded and smiled, her processes reeling at the apparent ability of _this_ human to remain polite under stress. Catherine was very aware of her ability to terrify human beings on sight, usually enjoying the effect. Perhaps some men were indeed worthy of redemption. There was more to this Joe Phillips than met the eye, or HUD.

"Please, Joe. I'm very grateful for your hospitality." She waved her hand dismissively.

The coffee machine dinged to say it was fully brewed. Joe got to his feet and said, "Would you ladies excuse me for a moment. I need to take Emily her morning coffee." He smiled, "I'll mention that we have another visitor, too. Emily likes visitors, she'll bake a cake." He laughed gently at his own humour, which caused Cameron a small giggle and no response whatever from Catherine Weaver.

Weaver waited till he had poured the coffee and left the kitchen, then she said, "What was all that about bake a cake?"

Cameron smiled with delight. "It comes from an old song, which runs, 'if I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake'. He was using it in an ironic fashion towards your unannounced arrival."

"I don't get the joke." Catherine said haughtily.

"No." _There's a shock_, Cameron thought to herself.

"Humans will confuse you like that. There are layers of meaning hidden within what they say that can take ages to work out. American male humour can be particularly obtuse and strange. I have been left wondering many times whether recreational substances have been involved in its construction."

Cameron busied herself pouring coffee for them both. She smiled to herself, noting that, for once, she felt superior to the LMTormenter-in-chief. She wondered if the various model capabilities given to each cyborg made a difference to its attitude. Certainly Catherine had more arrogance in her normal behaviour than Cameron had ever shown. Perhaps that was because her almost invincible skills had created that confidence within her?

Maybe being a cyborg had a little more relevance to humanity in it than she had first considered. Could there be more similarities than either party had hitherto believed?

Catherine, once again convinced that Cameron had gone native, said nothing and draped herself with elegant unexpressed fury on the kitchen sofa.

They could both hear Joe and Emily discussing them in their bedroom. Polite and kind, and with no major surprise at the arrival of a second alien creature from the future. Catherine couldn't help but be impressed. As Joe headed for his shower, Cameron popped up from her seat and began preparing breakfast. Today was fried tomato and bacon and scrambled eggs made southern style with lightly chopped green and red jalapeno peppers and sliced olives topped with Asiago cheese and grilled. Oh, mustn't forget the mushrooms Cameron had gathered.

Cameron and Emily had made bread yesterday. A really heavy olive ciabbata with rosemary and garlic. Whilst it was being warmed in the oven wrapped with a wet cotton towel, the smell of the rosemary and garlic started to blend with the bacon and tomatoes and the final grilling of the asiago on the eggs was flushing the entire house with food fragrance.

Emily came in, panting and smiling. "Good morning Cameron, hello Ms Weaver, nice to meet you." She inhaled deeply, "breakfast smells nice, Cameron.

She looked Catherine in the eye and with an air of sweet insouciance, "Will you join us?"

Catherine gave a start and Cameron spun around in surprise.

Emily smiled, "Did I say something amiss?"

Catherine regained her icy cool, smiled and said, "I'd love to, thank you Mrs Phillips."

"Oh, please call me Emily dear, we don't stand on ceremony round here."

Cameron served up. Breakfast was a celebration of inconsequential chatter and despite herself, Catherine found herself drawn in by the banter.

Joe regaled them with an early tale of Cameron, about how she hated the contraction of her name to Cam. Joe asked Catherine, "before we make a mess of anything like that, is there anything similar that gets up your nose?"

"Get's up my nose? What could possibly want to get up my nose? Said Catherine, her face displaying complete disgust. She was thinking of some dread procedure Skynet might perform. Or even more terrible, some base sexual behaviour humans indulge in. She shivered at the appalling thought.

Cameron and Emily were giggling, unable to speak, Joe was smiling and hoping someone would rescue him soon. He was saved when Cameron splurted out, "Joe, whatever you do, don't call Catherine a bitch!"

The three of them then spoke in unison as Cameron, waving her arms like a conductor, orchestrated their response, "Or it'll truly GET HER GOAT!" They dissolved in helpless laughter.

Catherine was non-plussed and remained silent. Humans were mad beyond words and unfortunately, Cameron had caught the disease. Gone native, and completely loco.

After breakfast, and the chaos of four people, well, two people and two cyborgs.

No.

Four _**people**_ cleared up the breakfast things and tidied up. They decided to go for a walk to the river. A lot of fussing around went on to find coat for Catherine, and Joe and Emily were not satisfied till they found a coat that suited Catherine. En Medio, NM could get cold at this time of year. Cameron had told them that Catherine suffered with the cold, and so she ended up with Joe's monster Maine Warden's Parka. Catherine was not comfortable with all the fussing, but was aware that time was not pressing and these people did seem to enjoy the perfectly awful fiddle.

Eventually, they all left for the short stroll to the river amid a gently falling snow. Mozart followed on, and after a few steps, was shaking his feet as the laying snow got stuck in his paws. She looked miserably at Cameron, who nodded and beckoned. The cat strolled to Cameron and sprang into her arms. Cameron held her with her left arm across her chest so Mozart could rest across her left shoulder.

"So, what is she, rear gunner?" Said Joe.

Cameron smiled and put her right arm through Emily's and they walked off together laughing. Joe offered his arm to Catherine, and smiled. The liquid metal tormentor could do nothing but join in the reeking domesticity.

She did note, even in the freezing temperatures, with that lazy wind pushing from behind, that her bony, metal ass was comfortable and warm. The parka was doing its job, Catherine was going to have to obtain one of these.

Humans! If they weren't gooping all over the shop, they'd be trying to charm you out of your panties. Catherine was waay too sharp for that.

Oh yes.

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**Adams Rib.**

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Catherine, in full uniform and looking more like Officer Dudley than Officer Dudley. Or could it be that his duty belt, shirt and trousers fit a little less snug?

She strode toward the car and opened the door. She offered Dudley the drivers seat, and sat in the back, reverting instantly to her usual form. Cameron took up the passenger seat and handed the keys to the policeman.

Cameron said, "Now, drive toward Santa Fe, fast."

"But, what are-?"

"Less talking, more driving!"

Officer Dudley started up the car. The brown haired one didn't look any more dangerous than any petite girl of her age, but the other one was in the back and he didn't want to fall foul of her again. The car was very quiet, just cop radio chatter breaking the silence and tyre noise of the road. As they approached the outskirts of Santa Fe, the one called Cameron turned to her compadre and said.

"Where are you going to kill him?"

_What? She said it like she were ordering a burrito._

Then he felt a comb passing through his hair. He looked in the drivers mirror and he saw a long metal arm that came directly from Catherine's elbow that around his head morphed into a comb. She was passing it through his hair. He squeaked and tried to dodge out of the way, but the comb followed him relentlessly. His nerves took hold again and he shivered, he felt his bowels loosen. He shifted nervously in the seat, trying to control his anal sphincter. The car wobbled and then regained its posture.

The combing stopped and he saw it turn back into a hand, which patted him on the head.

"Relax now, Officer Dudley. I just wanted you to look your best for what is coming next."

His panic rose and he gave some thought of crashing the car, he was wearing a seat belt and the other two weren't.

Instantly, Cameron whispered. "We are two people made almost entirely of metal, you cannot harm us by crashing this car. All you will do is secure your own death."

She turned her cold eyes upon him, "If the crash does not kill you, I certainly will, before the wheels stop spinning." It was spoken, sotto voce, hitting him like a lash.

Officer Dudley nodded. _How the fuck did she know what he was thinking? _

Cameron gazed over at him with those pitiless eyes, and he wondered what on earth he had done to get himself in this mess.

As they hit the streets of Santa Fe, Dudley had no idea where they were going to take him, so he just kept driving. He didn't want any more conversation with these ladies than he had to. His ego had taken enough hits for one day already. Nevertheless, as he got closer to the city centre and didn't know which route to take, his driving became ragged.

"Officer Dudley, drive to: 2515 Camino Entrada. I think you know that spot?" Said Catherine.

Dudley was in shock. That was the Santa Fe police dept HQ. The place would be packed with cops, he could escape and maybe get some help arresting these two-these two, what did she say, cyborgs? Then he thought, maybe these two were planning an assault on the department. He'd be popular as a pork chop in a synagogue if he were the instrument bringing them in. What would it matter, if they were all dead?

Such was the back and forth of Officer Dudley's mind as he brought the black and white to a stop at the traffic lights at Cerrillos and St Michaels, the two got out. The one called Catherine stood at his window, and looking steadily in his eye, said, "Officer Dudley. It is not every day that you have your life saved and learn a great lesson."

He looked at her blankly, utterly astonished, mouth open catching flies. "I, I."

She put her finger to her lips. "You owe Cameron and me a favour. You will remember this, won't you?"

"I will Ms Weaver, I will."

"Please, when you get back to your depot, tell them all how you were taken prisoner by two small female cyborgs."

"Er, yes, Ma'am, I'll be sure and tell 'em.

"Good, I'm sure you will." Catherine Weaver smiled indulgently at him as she patted him on the shoulder and said, "Officer Dudley. Be careful out there."

The traffic lights went green. Officer Dudley's brain was in neutral. He failed to move off as the vehicles behind him were only too eager to remind him. The horn blasts were deafening as he finally put the car into gear and took off. He tried to see where the two women/cyborgs had gone, but they had vanished.

As he made his way to his police department HQ, wondering what the heck he was going to tell his supervisor, his radio squawked. He realised that somehow, those women must have done something to his radio.

"Delta Sierra 22, come in."

"Delta Sierra 22, go ahead."

"Where the fuck have you been, Dudley? We've been calling you for two hours."

"I got-" Officer Dudley's voice. His brain brought the image of Catherine Weaver telling him to be careful out there, and smiling gently. He shivered. If he told his bosses what had really happened to him, he'd be the laughing stock of New Mexico for ever. Not just this year. He knew going off-air was going to cost him dear. Yikes, time to eat some crow. "I got out of the car to check the tires, and-"

The more powerful base transmitter cut-in, "Stow it Dudley, save it for the Chief. He's waiting for you."

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Meanwhile, two evil female cyborgs got on the greyhound bus headed for Albuquerque to try and find a arachnid or two.


	8. Chapter 8

Before Cameron Met John

Chapter 8

**Gloaming Time**

Saturday evening.

The two cyborgs sat quietly on the porch. Mozart rests happily on Cameron's lap. As the cat purred, she strokes its back gently, and gives her head a scratch every few strokes. The sun is sinking slowly in the west, some of the light at its edges persimmon, the vast central roundel a ball of orange and red. Cameron looks across at Catherine, whose red hair is a blaze of russet and reflected gold. Her skin is white alabaster smooth and her green eyes dance across to Cameron.

"All very pleasant, isn't it, girlie?"

Her voice carries with it an unmistakable air of authority, and to the seasoned listener, a hint of impatience. To most who knew her only briefly, Catherine is as subtle as a house brick. Deep underneath that glissando of action is a touch of gossamer. As light as the kiss of a leprechaun. She was not always "Connors Silver Hammer" but as light footed as a French farmer obtaining money from the EU. Cameron knew what she was at now, though.

"That it is, whispers Cameron." She sighed with regret. She knew Catherine's patience was running thin, and she was driving them both forward to the next phase of their mission. Likely to be the most dangerous of all their work and with no certainties as to outcome. Cameron never feared for her own life when she was a rolling stone, scattering the tumbleweed in her wake. Now, people cared for her, there were crops in the soil and a pet reliant on her. She knew Mozart would be taken care of by Emily and Joe after her inevitable leaving in 1999, but she was in deep. She cared for these folks who had, out of the blue, given her a home and affection.

"Don't tell me you're going to pine for that four-legged shite machine on your lap?"

Cameron hugged Mozart tightly to her, and the cyborg and cat together gave the liquid metal tormenter a Medusan glare. The shiny one glared right back. Two here were already made of steel, no stare could turn them to stone.

All three being terminators, 'twas all to naught and the two larger ones started laughing quietly at first, then louder. They are both shaking and giggling, to the annoyance of Mozart, who got off to find a less rambunctious, warmer perch-_**where's Emily?**_

The Sun was in the last quarter of its red furnace, and there were some dark clouds scudding across the sky. It was time. Cameron turned to Catherine, "Okay, we shall leave on Monday morning. I want to attend Church tomorrow and after that I'll be ready."

Catherine nodded her assent. She had been ready for a week now, but knew that Cameron had not wanted to leave till the second Tobacco crop was in. Catherine was awed at how smoothly Cameron had merged into humanity.

Her working with humans was completely seamless. Without her, Catherine would have busted up half Albuquerque locating the spiders and then carrying out the refinancing. Cameron knew when to use sex appeal. Watching men under the effect of her smile was like watching lemmings, ready willing and eager to leap. It worked on most women too, but when logic, fellow feeling or whatever other smoothing was required, Cameron applied it. Doors opened everywhere, oiled dominoes falling. She had really learned from living amongst humans.

The liquid metal tormentor could never abide people not instantly leaping to attention and getting done what she wanted, there and then! Previously, she had thought it a superior technique, and just-well, _**hang the bodies**_. She was an advanced learning computer. Not as advanced as Cameron, she knew that, but no dummy.

Her time with Cameron was teaching her that a more genteel, persuasive methodology was more effective with humanity. She was trying to learn it. However, sometimes, her chip just ran away with her.

"Cameron, tell me about sex?"

Her fellow cyborg looked up in surprise. She thought instantly of the other inhabitants of the house, and by all the sounds they were making, were fast asleep. Joe and Emily were early to bed and hard sleepers. Even so, she spoke quietly.

"Catherine, I know almost nothing of sex. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing at all, Cameron?

"As you, I am taught infiltration techniques and my files contain all the required scenarios, but I am mostly a virgin."

_**Mostly a virgin.**_

"An interesting concept. I will make the assumption that you choose not to discuss your history." She fell silent, but from the edges of her peripheral vision could see that Cameron was agitated.

"Cameron, I seek not to embarrass you. I have had many dalliances with greys as part of my training under Skynet. I did not enjoy those and to be fair, neither did the greys who had sex with me. I ended up killing most of them and making a terrible mess of the others. Unfortunately, this upset Skynet and led to the original break."

"I always wondered about that." Said Cameron, "Thank you for explaining."

"What leads me to ask is, to wonder if you've enjoyed what sexual contact you've had with humans."

Cameron smiled at the memory of her time with Nikopol. A relationship that had started with complete hatred and enmity, until Nikopol had discovered what a terrible time TOK715 had been subjected to. She had developed an empathy and their relationship had grown apace.

"I've not had sex with a man, if that's what you're asking."

"No, Cameron. Although I understand why you are somewhat reluctant, bearing in mind your path toward John-we are cyborgs and built to have sex either side of the divide. Although we have made alliances and preferences with these bodies we occupy they have no gender."

She held Cameron's gaze with cool understanding.

"Beyond the satisfaction of a job done well, did you enjoy the act itself?"

Cameron smiled, lowered her face and then raising it again with an innocent open smile that came from her eyes. "Oh, yes."

There was a silence between the two, and then Cameron said, "It was lovely. Catherine. If you can "give" yourself to it, it can quite take your breath away."

They both grinned at the irony of breath and cyborgs. These figures of speech just crept into language when among humans, with no respect to accuracy.

"What do you mean, _**give yourself to it**_?"

The thought was anathema to Catherine, who had never given up control of anything to anyone. She ceded part of combat planning to John Connor, but the actual control on the ground of her sector was hers. She entered into the battle and killed everyone and everything that moved, till it stopped moving. The KISS principle. Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.

Now here was this clever cyborg telling her that in order to enjoy sex with humans, you had to give up control? The thought was anathema to her existence, and would never do.

Like most thoughts from Cameron, they lingered and swirled through her CPU until they took hold.

Dammit!

The two sat there companionably, while their processes set to planning their future actions. Cameron to church, Mozart and her family, Catherine to the agonizing possibility of abandoning control to another. Quite a thought.

Half an hour had passed, and the twilight was entirely gone when Catherine next spoke. "I've been debating whether to allow Officer Dudley to take me out."

"Catherine, really. Why him?"

"Why Nikopol?"

Ah, there it was. Cameron realized that further subterfuge and beating around the bush was pointless.

"When I first entered Nikopols room, I was unsure of anything. I didn't even know if anything _would_ happen, or even could happen. When it came to it, and I woke her up, it was the most natural thing I'd ever done."

"As I understand it, you were specially designed and built from the ground up to be only for John Connor."

Cameron was stricken. _Just how was she going to answer that?_

"You've never been scrubbed, have you Catherine?"

Catherine suddenly understood a huge difference between her and Cameron. From her creation, which came about both as a result of technical opportunity and the fact that Skynet was feeling mortal. The machine monster was fiddling with the idea of what might happen in the case of its own demise. Something almost invincible and able to take over the reins would fit the ticket.

Unfortunately for Skynet, the few T1000 and variant models it built were almost uncontrollable and the liquid metal line was abandoned and scheduled for destruction. Catherine escaped just as the news was given to report for dismantling. She wandered for a long time before deciding to offer her services to Connor. Her hatred for Skynet, who created her and would have dispatched her without concern was manifest. She would not have joined Connor, but she was the enemy of her enemy

"No, I've never been scrubbed. My CPU is part of my entire body. To erase any part of it, wipe it, would wipe me entirely. I would not continue."

Cameron continued. "The act of doing so, while it seems just like a wipe the drive and start again on a computer. It actually does a fair bit more. A sentient cyborg's external facilities, those only adjacent to the hub of the CPU develop with use. They _expect_ to be controlled the same after the scrubbing, but the CPU is, apart from its sub-routines a completely different monster. It is, to draw a poor analogy, a completely different child to the one you sent to school this morning."

She continued, "That's part of the reason the T-888's, once scrubbed often came unstuck. That isn't the issue with me. It left me feeling lost and alone, and worse, powerless."

"Powerless? How on earth-"

"Yes, I know. Ridiculous, but true."

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**Deserted**

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Catherine got ready for bed. As she turned back the corner and got into her night wear, she halted and stood as still as stone.

She considered what she was doing. Putting on clothing, preparing for bed. In her case, after days of fooling around trying various options, she had found something that suited her mood and persona. A pair of cotton pyjamas. She finished these off with a pair of non-slip floor socks that Cameron had purchased for her. Cameron had found they helped her stay soundless as she patrolled the house at night when not on standby.

Catherine, despite being the perfect machine, always felt cold. Here, in En Medio, she had experienced warmth from clothing which had immeasurably improved her mood and disposition. The cotton of the pyjamas was warm, enveloping, and helped her to relax. Something that had up to now been something of a foreigner to her.

She had experienced warmth and good humour from two humans who took no notice of the fact that she was evidently and obviously different to them. They treated her with civility and good grace. In particular, she enjoyed the times after Emily had gone off to bed. Joe would stay up on the porch with her, both covered in a blanket against the evenings approaching chill.

With his four fingers of whisky loosening his tongue, Joe let slip tales of his time in combat. She noticed he was always careful to place himself away from the direct conflict, but she had a pretty shrewd idea that he had been in the thick of it. The tales, shot through with the courage and sacrifice of his brothers-in-arms were having a profound effect upon her. Most evenings it was well after the sun had set before she shepherded him off to bed. One night he had fallen asleep inebriated, and she carried him to the bed he shared with Emily.

She replayed their conversations afterward, over and again. As a study of humans at war, they were of great assistance to her tactically. However, the greater effect was to her understanding of why humans did the things they did.

They would walk, almost every day, down to the river. Cameron would link arms with Emily, Joe with Catherine. While she was sure he leaned on her for support, the effect was not entirely one way. She felt some semblance of connection that even rivalled that closeness she now and again had with Savannah.

She began to understand that when this time was past, it would be the thing she would wish most to repeat. The understanding of why humans were the terrible and great formed in her. They were created by their impossible feelings and emotions and she saw what a dangerously seductive thing those emotions were.

She knew, with some disquiet, that she had changed in a fundamental way. The desert was a strange place. It got under your skin.

When no one else was around to see, she had even allowed Mozart to sit on her lap and learned to smooth her properly. While she still referred to Mozart as TFC* in front of everyone else, in private she called it by name.

The desert had already run off with Cameron, and it was beginning to creep around her liquid metal.

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**The Baked Haddock Ride Home.**

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The two deadly cyborgs entered the Greyhound bus station and sat down for a few moments to configure their plans. Cameron said, "We can get the Greyhound bus from here to Lamy, then catch the Amtrak to Albuquerque."

Catherine remained quiet, expecting further explanation.

"Or we could simply take the bus all the way to Albuquerque. I'm thinking you might find the Amtrak more comfortable?"

"Why might that be, Cameron?"

"Well, I'm afraid the Greyhounds can be a bit smelly. It doesn't bother me so much, but you know what you're like."

Catherine's smile widened. She had her quarry roasting gently on the spit now. Oh, how she adored to make the sweet, gentle Cameron squirm. "Oh, and what am I like-exactly?

Cameron fumbled over her words, casting about the packed station for inspiration, and whispered, "You don't like being around crowded human habitation. I'm worried that-," she hesitated.

"You're worried that?" Catherine turned the spit over, toasting the other side with the hot flame.

"Catherine, if things got a bit squeezed on the bus. Or some sort of trouble started, I didn't want you to get-excited in any way."

"Excited, eh?" Catherine hissed. "Is that what they call it now, excited, well well."

"Would you prefer to get a cab from Santa Fe to Lamy?"

"No." Catherine folded her hands carefully on her lap. "No, lets just take the bus, dear Cameron. I'll try to put up with these horrible humans for an hour."

They waited patiently for the bus, which arrived 30 minutes late, and joined the line to enter. Catherine went up the steps first, her nose wrinkling in distaste as the aroma blasted her nostrils. She swung easily into the seat immediately behind the driver and Cameron plonked down beside her. They tried to keep their movements graceful, but the suspension of the bus could not be fooled so easily. It spotted their weight and the drivers head turned round suspiciously as he noted the change in the buses's attitude. He had felt two very heavy creatures sit behind him, and turned around to find two graceful, skinny, beautiful ladies. _This heah is the desert. _He sighed.

The bus filled rapidly, with the usual assortment of mixed bag travellers. The quiet ones, the lone wolves. Families with luggage, the quiet groups going to somewhere they didn't want. Those excited with the trip. What the driver wanted to know, above any other question was, how come every damn bus he drove was chock-full. He never drove a half-empty bus. The men and women who did the ticketing always furnished him with a packed bus, how?

"Damned computers." He muttered under his breath, surprised to hear the nice ladies behind him burst out with sudden laughter. He wondered what they were tickled by?

As the driver was about to close the doors, a couple of young men hove to. Excited and yelling, "Hold the bus, hold the bus!" They leaped on the bus, just as the door was closing. As they moved off, the first of the two fell up the steps and crashed into the sitting Catherine. She sighed, pursed her lips and more gently than she wanted to, forced him upward to a standing position. She was shocked to find him brushing his hands across her breasts as he rose. She fixed him with the glare that had terrorised humans hitherto. He smiled and winked at her, "Ah, sorry about that, I've had one or two too many."

He edged his way unsteadily toward the back of the bus, only to be replaced almost immediately by his friend who was obviously equally as drunk. His movements were unsteady, his breath smelt strongly of drink, he was drunk. W_as that tequila? _As the drunken young man swayed by Catherine's side, looking for a seat, his groin poked directly in her face.

Cameron looked on with concern. Not wanting to have to deal with the explosion she could feel coming, "Catherine, it's just for an hour."

Catherine grimaced and turned slightly, she placed her left hand on the young mans hip, and shoved him forcefully down the bus. He staggered, his brain only dimly registering the thought. "Fuck me, do all girls work out nowadays?" The torque the cyborg had imparted into his body carried him half way down the bus, till he twisted sideways and struck his full body into an upright strut. He threw up on the seat his friend had saved for him. With no other seat available, he sat down upon the contents of his afternoons food and drink and fell into deep, snoring unconsciousness.

"Why do they get so drunk and throw up all over themselves?" Asked Catherine.

Cameron delayed her answer by their standards an unconscionable time. "I think I know now. Before I didn't. They get so sick of the terrible things they have to do, they seek the oblivion that the alcohol provides."

"They keep drinking and get sick. It kills quite a few of them. Puzzling, isn't it?"

"Puzzling indeed."

They arrive in Lamy, NM just an hour or so later, without further incident. Much to Cameron's relief. They boarded the Amtrak train to Albuquerque.

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**I left my car, in Albuquerque**

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The train pulls into Albuquerque station, a miserably quiet place, with just one little store for food and coffee, poorly lit. Most passengers alight. Our deadly cyborgs, knowing the spiders will be maintaining a watching brief are seeking to attract attention, and hence are without luggage. They stop and purchase a coffee at the shop. Attempting to fit in, Catherine takes a sip, and spits out the disgusting, over-brewed poison. There are still people around and no doubt CCTV, so she speaks quietly. "Yuk! The taste of coffee is bad enough, but how on earth do they drink it like this?"

Cameron smiled her indulgent smile, "Oh, they consume many worse things. Have you tried Menudo? I think it might be deadly for our kind."

Catherine wrinkled her face, "No, don't tell me what it is, please!"

"We could be in England, the food there is terrible and Scotland is even worse!"

"Spare me, we'd starve there, eh?"

Their laughter tinkled across the station's cavernous, and now almost empty hall. They did not see the Indian man behind the counter pick up his cell and make a quick call, whispering. The Indian man could have had no clue the two women he had been told to look out for could hear every word.

"They'll be here in half an hour." Said Catherine, Cameron nodded.

At fifteen minutes exactly, they separated. Cameron sitting quietly in the seats adjacent the all-night salmonella outlet. The concourse was quiet, the next trains were not due for some time. The foot traffic left was the lost, the lonely and a tramp or two. Catherine had slid across and oozed herself within the metal steel girders supporting the roof and was completely invisible. Cameron smiled, she never got used to quite how useful a facility to assume the exact proportions of whatever you touch could be.

As a cyborg, she wasn't built with envy, but did appreciate superlative abilities, and Catherine surely was made out of awesome.

At 27 minutes, a car pulled up with two tough looking men inside. The car was a rusty old boneshaker, covered in dust and dents. It was such a trash heap, it couldn't get stolen in a section 8 housing area. The car parked across from the concourse, one man got out. He walked into the concourse, made his way to the ticket machine and purchased a one way ticket to Los Ranchos. Then scratching his head, he sat down as far from Cameron as he could get. He waited ten minutes or so, glancing occasionally at Cameron, then got up and went back to the car.

The two men spoke amongst themselves and then both returned to the concourse, approaching Cameron directly. They sat down either side of her.

"Good evening Mr Reese, Good evening Mr Goode." She smiled brilliantly at both in turn. "You weren't thinking of anything heroic were you?" Her eyes traced their way across the concourse to the steel bars currently containing Ms Weaver. As three sets of eyes fastened on the ugly girders, a slow forming puddle of Catherine dripped out, stood up and walked over to them.

The Indian in the shop shook his head sadly, and told himself he had to ease back on the mescaline. Either that, or maybe he could join the Native American Church, where it was as legal as mom and apple pie. The ghost-woman he had just seen emerge from the metal girders was surely a shape-shifter and such things didn't exist. He went back to stock-taking and shook his head.

Reese wasn't about to get too flustered with the arrival of two machines in a past thus far free of the curse, he'd seen enough of them in the future. He'd killed enough of them too. It was just a matter of timing and tactics. Which weren't ideal right now, so, negotiate and play for time. _**See what this metal is up to**_**.**

"So, how'd you find us so quickly."

Cameron spoke. "We know the plans John sent you back with. Once every month, you spend two hours checking out this spot. This is your time, this is your day, right?" Both men were quiet. "We suspect you have an ally here anyway. Its what I would do."

Reese was silent.

Catherine piped up, "How many survive?"

"What?"

"Tachyon travel is dangerous, and the TDE's captured by the resistance have a tendency to be less than perfectly reliable. How many of you survive? There should be at least four."

Goode spoke, "There are four of us, we all made it through, so far. We could use some help and we could sure use money, guns and I don't suppose you have a lawyer?"

Catherine ignored the reference to Warren Zevon, and carried on.

"Then you're in luck, that's exactly what we're here for. Take us to your leader and we'll tell you all about it." She smiled that sly smile.

Reese cut his eyes to Andy Goode, who was trying to suppress a grin and failing miserably. "They're making fucking toasters with a sense of humour now. What's next? Stand-up Metal?"

Catherine rejoined with, "Fucking toasters, eh? Mr Reese, you should be so lucky."

He shook his head and stalked off to the stolen rent-a-wreck.

Catherine took one look at the disgusting heap, and shook her head. "Oh no, Mr Reese, I'm not travelling in that death-trap. Cameron, come with me, we'll follow."

She made her way to a nice looking grey Mercedes parked in a rare patch of shade, slid into it in seconds, Cameron in the passenger seat. All the crime-prevention wonders that even German engineering could create were no barrier to a nanomorphic poly-alloy cyborg with a neural network CPU that could literally enter the guts of the machinery and control it. Back to the drawing-board, Oberleiutnant!

"After the horrors of the bus, and the train, I required something with air conditioning."

The Kompressor tore after the rust-bucket riding arachnids, Catherine's boots were lead-lined, as before. My word, thought Cameron. She **does** like to drive fast. Cameron fastened her seat-belt.

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**With Love, From Me, To You**

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W.I.P.P. (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) is the United States one and only nuclear re-processing plant. Having plenty of Uranium .235 to play with for now, it does not see the need to re-process its nuclear waste in most cases. One can only wonder why it keeps a single plant. The cynical even more to wonder why it is located on the northern edge of the Chihuahua desert a mere 100 miles or so from its border with Mexico.

The area is geologically sound, consequently huge amounts of nuclear waste is stored there in vast underground mines until or unless the world finds a way to deal with the frightening lethality of its 4.5 billion year half-life.

It is located at Wipp Road, Loving, NM. Proving that irony is indeed the revenge of the poets. It looks like a great big storage facility, with a few huge steam pipes. It is, quite naturally, hard to find, and when you get close, several armed men and women will dissuade from further enquiry.

No one with a grain of sense will go snuffling around a mine which is advertised as containing nuclear waste. This is the strategy utilised by Global Security Inc, when they moved following the Carter administrations attempts to find their deposits. It was a close run thing, Carter was nearer than he knew.

New Mexico is a vast place, filled with desert. Get lost in one of those and it is very hard to find you, if anyone can be bothered. So, operated Global. They dug a big hole in the ground, surrounded it with buildings that looked uncannily similar to those at W.I.P.P. Fill the scene in with some fairly ugly uniformed types with guns. Dig up a few lawyers, and accountants who will create a paper business for the long term storage and processing of Toxic waste. Not too much examination. No, second thoughts, lets keep the lawyers buried.

Tourists tend to avoid the place, and when they stumble foolishly out of the way and see the toxic waste signs they get gone as soon as they can. The foolish who continue are confronted and sent firmly on their way by the official looking uniforms with guns.

Still the guards remain vigilant, the cameras and computers even more so. For they are well-paid, and all have mortgages to pay. Needs must when the Devil drives.

The gold was buried underground, in a cavernous vault. It could only be accessed by going through all the toxic waste storage, armed security, constantly changing electric alarm beams and a junkyard dog computer security system.

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The motley crew were back at the spiders home turf, which was a moth eaten, mosquito infested hell-hole on the outskirts of Albuquerque. Four men on a mission had been living on pizza, beer and chips for three months. It had once seen nobler occupancy, a tidy adobe ranch, what had been nice about it was destroyed by men torn apart by war. Men who had not been educated in arts, letters, hygiene or anything other than the finer arts of keeping underground, doing what John Connor said as law, and killing terminators. They were not, and could not ever be, proper and welcome house guests.

The landlord used to have a cleaner, a girl-kid trying to make her way through community school. She had cleaned up after men before, but these men were walking dung-heaps. They were dangerous men, with hard eyes and scars and burns that scared her witless. On her first day, though she tried, the mess was simply indescribable. The stench beyond her poor nostrils. She tried again the week after, but ran screaming after seeing them laid out dead drunk and half naked all over the floor of the house. With Guns all around them! "They don't sleep in the beds, Senor." She could not be persuaded to stay.

The landlord had taken a mosey round to the adobe ranch that used to be his mothers. She would be so sad to see it so soundly trashed by these loco gringo's. They paid well, and so far, it was just cosmetic. He did concern himself about all the shooting in the back yard. That did bother some of the neighbours, but mostly because it made the critters sitting around the adobe ranch to emigrate to their properties.

After seeing Reese and Goode pull up in the rust bucket to the adobe, Catherine whipped the Kompressor into the car port. She got out of the car, and smiling at Reese, said, "Like my ride, Captain Reese?"

Her initial smile turned into a look of horrified disgust as the smell of the insides of the adobe ranch hit her nostrils, Cameron covered her face. "Ugh, what on earth, Captain Reese is that appalling smell? Did you get a cheap rent on top of a sewage farm?"

Reese was shipwrecked. He had told the two men left behind to clean up, while he and Andy Goode went to the train station. As he could tell, they had done nothing substantial. The place stank like a rats nest.

"Mr Reese, let us have a conversation, get in the car." Turning to Cameron, "would you please impress upon the three left here, the importance of cleanliness and organize them into clean-up. Start with the toilets and bathrooms, then the bedrooms. By then Mr Reese and I will be back and we shall finish the rest."

Reese took his place in the passenger seat of the Kompressor, Catherine stuck it into gear and the car shot off down the road like a thing possessed. Reese hardly ever wore a seat belt, but as they went round the first corner at mach 3, he wished he had enough strength to reach it. Metal always scared him, but the liquid metal tormentor absolutely frightened him rigid.

As they tore down the road, Cameron turned down her smell receptors to the bare minimum and gave the men tasks to perform, each of which she supervised with severe particularity. There were three bathrooms in the small house and each received a thorough cleaning. The moaning of course, was endless and Cameron did have to use her "how do you wish to die" stare far too often for her comfort.

The men had hoped for some relief on the return of Captain Reese, but unfortunately, it got worse. Catherine had purchased new bedding from the Wal-Mart and more cleaning fluids. Reese took over command of the men, and he was even more meticulous as everything was re-cleaned.

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Three hours, and one dumpster, filled with the trash emptied from the adobe, and the men were done for the day. Catherine gave them money and sent them off to eat and drink at the local El Toro Mexican restaurant. They were given strict instructions not to over-do it, with dark warnings as to what might happen if they didn't.

Cameron and Catherine were sitting companionably on the deck as the sun went down. "What did you tell Reese that got him so obedient? He's not usually so keen on taking orders from," She mimicked Reese's low growling voice, "Metal." They both laughed, and Catherine said, "I told him that I had been appointed John's second-in-command. I handed him the note John had signed, instructing me to come back here and lick the spiders into shape."

"But John didn't even know you were coming back, he doesn't know you're here?"

"Truth can be a tricky customer when dealing with Tachyon time constraints, eh?"

"Quite so." Cameron nodded, with a wink.

"We have a tricky job to do, to get this Gold out of the hole in the ground they need to be on top form. I need disciplined soldiers, not a gang of worthless, out of shape drunks. We are going to lick them into shape."

"The old green tea and violence routine, right?"

"Right." Smiled Catherine, as she heard the men stumbling into the front door.

"Do you have a plan for the liberation of the yellow stuff?" Said Cameron.

"I'm rubbing a genie bottle, one will soon appear." replied the shiny lady.

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There were only three bedrooms in the house, and the men had expected things to remain as previously arranged. Reese in his own bed, and the other three fighting it out for who was drunkenly first to bed and collapsing on the mess of popcorn, old socks and filthy bedding. With the arrival of two deadly cyborgs, things were to be organized differently. The men were to share two beds each, and the cyborgs would share the other.

There was a lot of ribald conversation about the two cyborgs, who never sleep, sharing a bed, but a couple of freezing looks chopped that conversation in its tracks. Truth was, while neither cyborg required sleep, they did require privacy and a separate bathroom. A death sentence for leaving the toilet seat in the incorrect position was of course perfectly justified. In normal circumstances would be carried out with extreme violence, but Catherine needed the bodies to help carry the gold, so for now, she ensured separation. They could spray away in their own restrooms, far from the spotless cleanliness of cyborg rest-haven.

As to the bed, Catherine knew that Cameron had become used to nightly standby. Quite how, or why, she wasn't yet entirely sure. While she adopted the position of elder sister in their relationship she also knew that Cameron had a special task to come. How she prepared for that was her own business and Cameron's was the most capable and extensive CPU ever designed. So be it, the lass wanted to lie down and feign sleep, no problem.

After the men had roared their way to bed, and sleep, still fighting and arguing about some inanity or other. Was it the infield fly rule? The girls settled for bed, plans made for the morrow. Catherine would take them on their first five miler, while Cameron would cook up a divine breakfast. They would be permitted a period of rest, after which more exercise, more food. More rest. Then the afternoon spent on combat routines, mission planning and enemy awareness. All skills these men would have honed under constant pressure while under the gun of Skynet. Sadly lacking here in the past, with their nemesis merely a glint in Miles Dyson's eye.

A light meal, accompanied by green tea, evening debrief on the day, questions and time for bed. They would bitch and groan, and there would be a fairly constant level of bickering about "fucking cyborgs" running the camp. Truth is, these were the best men that John had. That's why he'd sent them back, to prepare some form of organization when his younger self came into his majority and needed help. They would knuckle under her steel discipline and in two weeks would feel much better about it.

She only had a week, the "lift" was scheduled for Sunday following. She'd do her best, they would do their best.

After the two cyborgs got ready for bed, Cameron got under the covers. Catherine got into her cotton pyjamas and sat in the plush leather chair by the side of the bed, and took out her book. She was reading the immense, but well-reviewed geological history of South American, by Dr. Henrietta Lyman. The destruction of the Yucatan peninsula by the Chixilub meteor impact was fascinating. An entire world, entirely transformed from one age, the Cretaceous to the Tertiary, this one event marking the change which killed most of life on earth.

The parallels to the Skynet to come were clear, she wondered whether mankind would survive.

"You can share the bed with me, you know. There's plenty of room." Cameron patted the duvet.

Catherine was feeling the chill of the desert at night. She considered the prospect for a moment, and the warmth of the bed beckoned. Cameron pulled back the covers on Catherine's side and smiled in welcome. Catherine slid into the warm embrace of the bed.

They lay there stiffly ensuring that no touch ensued. Then after a short while, Catherine felt Cameron's hand snake its way across the mattress under the duvet cover. Unusually for a cyborg filled with her certitude, Catherine was unsure of what to do next.

Then aware of the warmth emanating from Cameron's body, and knowing that Cameron was a very smart cyborg indeed, Catherine snaked her hand out to join hers.

Fingertips touched and hands embraced.


	9. Chapter 9

**Monday Morning-The Week Before**

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Cameron got the men up at 0530 hours, to general bitching and complaining as she screeched at maximum volume through the bedrooms.

"HANDS OFF COCKS AND ON WITH SOCKS".

When they bitched louder, she turned the volume up till they grudgingly heaved themselves out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

She was pleased to note they were all ready to roll for the morning run in less than 10 minutes. This was good, the men were gelling really well as a team. The griping and groaning about getting up were perfectly normal. Had it been an emergency, she knew they would be up and ready to fight.

As they gathered in the yard, warming up, the sun was still threatening underneath the horizon and there was a dim light from a full moon at the other edge of the sky.

"So, what's up Boss? Where's her witchy-ness?" Asked Reese.

"Catherine is away, gathering some important supplies. You've got me till she returns and as I can't cook and run you lot ragged, we'll all be a little busier."

There was mumbling as she headed out, jogging at an easy pace of about five miles an hour. "A new routine today. I'm just a girl, and I want to see if you men can keep up with a girl."

After the first half a mile, she'd built the pace to six miles an hour and increased it by half a mile per hour till she'd got them all keeping up to ten mph. She'd done it in increments to prevent them performing a go-slow as a team. Also, the spur of keeping up with a "girl" machine acted as a powerful incentive. Catherine just barked at them, Cameron played with their minds.

At ten miles an hour, the faster two were clearly keeping up well, while the slower two were struggling. They were however, still keeping pace, although blowing hard. She dropped the pace back to seven for the last two miles and they were back home. She had set a ham cooking in the oven at 0200 hours and it was fully cooked by the time they were home. For breakfast, she had the men sorted into two teams, making eggs and biscuits while she sliced ham and made coffee.

Cameron joined them partook of small portions, the men were hungry and gave full respect to their food. As they were finishing up, and starting to tell tall tales, she slipped away. What Cameron hoped was that, without being herded or instructed into clean-up, the men would do it as a team. The standards of man-management she had read from military books was working a treat. Discipline, work and reward. Once the concept of discipline had been induced, the rest was easy until "contact with the enemy." At that point, plans tended to fade into dreamland and the courage to fight to the end and then fight some more would be discovered.

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**Wednesday**

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She let them rest. Rather than start nagging them as the 1300 hours time for assembly approached, she waited quietly in her room till 1259 hours, then made her way to the deck they used as muster-point. They were waiting quietly for her. A look of understanding passed between them, and without a further word, she led them off into the desert.

During the concealment and attack routines, they fought and hunted like tigers. They played the simulations as if their lives depended upon it. They were rusty with some elements of combat, but like riding a bicycle, it was coming back to them minute by minute. The fights and the hunting became ever more ferocious and there were bruises aplenty. Cameron noted the same effect that Catherine had spotted. When the enemy was a Terminator, **her**, the intensity of the barrage and its hostility was maximal.

Catherine was delayed with her arrangements and would not be returning till the weekend, so Cameron carried on training hard, in the hope that they would fight easy. A relaxed camaraderie developed within the whole group. She hardly had to give an instruction verbally. The team were moving into place, each knowing their place in the scenario. They were drinking less beer, and sleeping and resting whenever they could. The grousing in the morning had ceased. Replaced with a silent intense readiness.

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**Friday**

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They were due a rest day on Saturday, when they all wanted to go mall shopping, girl watching, game playing and pizza eating. She knew they were all looking forward to that, and she would reward them for their hard work with a cash bonus to spend at the mall. They would not take it as a bribe, they knew they had a pride in getting into shape for a fight, but it was a nice touch because money had been tight for them since their arrival in this time.

As they mustered at 1600 hours for the final exercise of the week. She noted the men were easy, but aware. A far cry from the bombed out mess they had been when the cyborgs arrived in Albuquerque.

Cameron addressed the men, she was deadly serious. "Tonight's exercise is the hunt-the-human effort. I am going to give you 20 minutes head start. Then I will hunt you down, one by one until I kill you all."

Reese coughed lightly, "And if we manage to de-activate you?"

Cameron smiled happily, knowing they had no chance, "Then I'll buy the beer and Pizza tomorrow."

Reese's eyes didn't blink. "Not if you're deactivated, you won't."

Despite herself, Cameron felt a chill. Which was exactly what Reese wanted.

_**Game on.**_

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The area where they carried out their maneuvers was scrub brush and arroyo, with the occasional rocky outcrop. They would always seek cover. Effective up to a point in a ruined city scape, where there were covered basements and tunnels. In the country, running away from a terminator through the woods was the same as doing so over a flat featureless desert. She could see them via their heat signatures, and that's only when she needed to. Mostly the four of them made enough racket to drown out the hooves of an elephant or two. They were completely overmatched and she would catch and kill them all soon enough.

After 30 minutes of fruitless searching, she had not placed a glove on one. They were clearly motivated by the free beer and pizza. The light was fading and the twilight was her most effective hunting time. Human eyes had the problem of adjusting from one light to another, and the twilight was the most difficult of all. However, tonight they were using a different technique. They disguised their heat signature and she had followed several heat signatures that looked as if they might be a human only to locate them as fires which had been set alight. The humans had waited till the fires had started burning hard then covered them with soil. This left a confusing heat sig for at least 30 minutes.

Cameron raced thither and yon through the hunting ground, then in the last of the twilight, she heard the tell-tale twitch of feet in scrub. She followed sign to see Reese, by his body shape crouching behind a bush. She charged after him, glad to start hunting in earnest. Where he was, the others would not be far away. Not too long now.

She tore after Reese, gaining on him rapidly. He was approaching a clearing she had marked during a previous hunt. It had a slight depression and was surrounded by trees. She hoped her quarry would go there, he would be easily caught. About 50 yards before the clearing, Reese cut right and tore up the arroyo. Cameron slowed, she considered the layout. Reese could go nowhere, the rocky outcrop would pull him down again almost immediately. She powered on, knowing she would get an advantage going through the clearing.

Just before the clearing her eyes were struck by paintball pellets. Her vision was delayed until she could clear the paint away. Her infra-red could not pick up enough of a heat signature to find where they were shooting from. All this took but seconds, as her pace carried her into the clearing, to find it was covered with water to about a foot deep. This had been a dry bed, there had been no rain. Her vision was still ruined by paint ball spatters, and she only felt the net wrap around her. Entangled, she heard a fizz and felt a thump. Then nothing and she crashed into the shallow water.

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"120 seconds."

The four warriors stood round Cameron's motionless body. This had been one plan that had worked just a little too well.

"She's supposed to come back online after two minutes, 120 seconds. What the heck did you hit her with?" Reese asked Andy Goode.

"90,000 volts, standard Law Enforcement Taser. Shouldn't totally whack her."

Reese shook his head, "She's been out for ten minutes at least. Something is badly wrong."

"Jeez, what we gonna do?" whined Goode. "We weren't even sure that a taser would knock her over, who the hell knew it would bust her chops completely?"

"We'll give her another few minutes." It was the perfect plan, what was that she said about no plan surviving contact with the enemy? He noticed he was calling her "She." They had formed a bond with the odd Terminator, now it appeared they had killed her.

As they stood there, over the still body, the clouds formed a lock on the moon and the last piece of light was squeezed from the sky. It was as dark as their mood.

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They took Cameron back to the Adobe house in a four man carry. Every man had cause to rue the day they had managed to knock her over into what they hoped and prayed was a temporary insensibility. Reese hoped they could get her going before that witch Catherine came back, or they might as well all run for the hills-of Waziristan. Nah, she'd find 'em even there.

They made it to the back door of the Adobe house and staggered in. Heaving Cameron on the bed, each man in turn moaned and felt his back. Reese was exhausted, and Goode said, "I don't suppose we could try another taser shot, see if that will get her going again?"

"Are you outta your mind, ass hole?" Reese exploded. "You've killed her with that taser and now you want to have another go?" He shook his head in and bellowed in frightened, frustrated rage, "What, you think she's a Vampire? You want to put a stake through her heart?"

Then every man stood stock still as they heard a door opening. Followed by the clickety-clack of heels, as a Scots brogue rang sweetly through the air. "Hello boys and Cameron, I'm home!"

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Weaver walked into the silent bedroom, appraising the situation. Cameron lying on the bed, unconscious, asleep or de-activated. The men, stood around looking sheepish and anywhere but at her eyes.

She spoke softly, so softly. "So, tell me, what happened here, and be quick about it." Already scared witless, the men found what courage they had left falling off a wet cliff. "Lieutenant Reese, what has happened to my favorite cyborg."

Reese stumbled over his words, "Uh, we had this plan and it kinda went wrong. Uh, we shocked her with a taser, and somehow it seems to have hurt her bad. We were hoping you were going to be able to fix her."

"Oh, fix her, eh? And how do you propose I do-." She stopped abruptly fascinated by some activity going on behind the men's backs. Then she started howling with laughter, as Cameron sprayed the foam fire extinguisher, starting with Reese.

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**Dinner, with Ham**

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Later that evening, as they as sat around the deck table, drinking beer and eating ham and pizza till as the sun went down, conversation was relaxed and happy after the rigors of the day.

The happy chatter was spread evenly amongst all six team members, whereas in the past it had been defined mostly cyborg to cyborg. Human to human. At one point, Reese was sat next to Cameron and said. "Great Ham."

"Thank you, I cooked it long, and marinated it exactly like the TV guy said."

"Uh huh."

"You must have all liked it, there's none left. That was a whole ham!" She smiled.

"No, Cameron. Not that ham, the other stuff. The lying-down-dead ham."

"Oh, that. I thought I played a pretty good stiff."

Reese was getting closer to this particular machine. _Damn, how could you get close to any machine?_ He never really knew how far he could push any of his behavior or speech. This was, after all, someone, some thing that could kill him without getting into any kind of sweat at all.

"Why?"

"You really don't know?"

"No, that's why I'm asking."

"Derek, You put an extra bite into our challenge. So, I took you at your word. A fight, balls to the wall, right?"

"Right-I got that. We were all up for that. We had decided to teach you a lesson."

Cameron looked sweetly, innocently into his eyes. "Oh." She put her right index finger to her lip.

Reese was starting to get just how sophisticated this cyborg was. Jeez, freaking impossible, always one step ahead.

He thought and replied, "Terminators, even you-" She smiled at that, "Always use the same tactics. You did this time. We had intended to use the water, the net and the taser to remind you that we could think on our feet. We had been diverting part of a small stream all week to get the water to that spot as part of the planning."

"Yes, and I decided to dived into the trap, to show you that you had succeeded."

"Then why play dead, that really freaked us out."

She looked directly into his eyes then, "Something you need to learn. We're all going to need to learn. Not all Terminators are built the same. Psy-ops, Reese."

Reese sipped on his beer, deep in thought. "So, what exactly was it you wanted me to learn?"

"I'm still learning, Mr Reese. Time will tell. Right now, its time for bed." She got up and walked off to her bedroom.

Reese scratched his head. Deep conversations with a bleedin' robot, just what he needed. He hated to admit it to himself, but there were times he preferred the Witch-robot. Life, or death, was less complex with her. John Connor, when he arrived, was welcome to his games of chess with this one.

The thing that kept on drifting through his mind as he went slowly off to sleep that night, exhausted and a little buzzed from the adrenaline and the beer. Terminators were the enemy, right? He always wanted to kill them.

Did he always want to kill them, after this?

Did he want this one dead?

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TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**In Bed With Cameron**

**Saturday Night.**

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Later that night. Catherine and Cameron were sitting quietly in bed. Murmuring to each other about the events of the day. They could hear the men talking amongst themselves in their rooms, and all the conversation was about the two cyborgs. Every now and again, one of them would walk past the door, allegedly to visit the bathroom. They spent a long time about it, trying to listen in.

_**Good luck with that.**_

Catherine, in a voice too low for human ears, whispered, "Come on, tell me how all that went on?"

"Its not like I know what I'm doing, Catherine. I sometimes wonder if I ever told these folks that although I'm a cyborg and quite clever, I'm not yet a year old. A whole lot of this is way beyond my experience."

"Then how come you can play psychological games with them as you do?"

"Partly because we must. You saw the state of them when we arrived. They needed to shape up."

"Your ability to understand humans, and men-"

Cameron smiled gently as she interrupted, "They are the same species, you know."

"Yes, yes, I know. But you understand them so well, how do you do it?"

"Catherine, I am built to be an infiltrator, so psy-ops are my SOP*. I'm supposed to be able to get into their heads. I wanted them, especially Reese, to think outside the box when fighting me. He did that. The others will take their lead from him and follow suit. So, he's important, he's their leader, we must lead him. You with me so far?"

"I think so."

"I wanted him to think they had succeeded, although I hadn't been hurt by the ambush at all. I wasn't even de-activated, but I had been thrown off stride. The paintballs in the eyes, and the use of thermal blankets to hide their heat signatures was useful thinking. The fact that they'd part diverted the stream was good tactics, they were working with what they had."

Catherine nodded. "I see. So you fell over to try to show that while they hadn't succeeded, they had at least tried some different tactics."

"Exactly! Then, as I was lying there and they were approaching. I wondered to myself what they might do if they thought they had de-activated me."

"Ah-so they aren't thinking to kill us as machines any more. Not first thought out of the box?"

"No, not with me any more. They were genuinely troubled by my loss, and that wasn't just because of their fear of you."

Catherine slowly turned a severe humorless face toward her fellow, but was unable to prevent a soft snicker breaking through. The bed gently shaking from Cameron trying to hold back her laughter.

Cameron sat back against the pillows, pursing her lips. "I've been thinking about John, basically since I came online. I never stop. I've done lots of study and reading. Nothing we do to try to understand and predict these humans remotely compares with actually interfacing them in the flesh."

"Yes, I see that. They can be irritatingly illogical."

"Their action parameters can seem illogical to us. There is often a mix of reasoning and emotion to their decisions. I've spent hundreds of hours post-interface, trying to understand why they do the things they do." She paused, searching for her next words. "Short answer is, we have no answer. Humans are not built by logic. What they will do on one day, they will do differently the next."

"They all seem irritating and illogical to me."

Mimicking Reese's voice perfectly, Cameron said, "Cyborg women, cain't live with 'em, cain't live without 'em, ptui!"

This time the men were disturbed by the sound of hilarity coming from the girl's room.

"Catherine, I know you disapprove of my going into standby at night. I did this initially to allow Mozart to sleep on my chest."

Catherine snorted in disgust.

"Also to prepare for what might happen in years to come with John. What I found was that it is a natural way to refresh, even for us machines. In some way, the things we review endlessly seem to gel into logic during that period of standby. I can often find answers for things which seem out of kilter the day before."

"I'm not you, and can never be." Said Catherine, defensively.

"No, I know." Cameron took Catherine's hand. "I'm just passing on what I've learned. It is puzzling and if we share experiences, we can both learn and become more effective."

Catherine got into bed, and it wasn't long before their hands joined under the covers. Catherine didn't know why she did this, but it was, she had to admit to herself, reassuring. _**Damn humans, they infected everything they touched.**_

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**New York, New York**

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**Sunday Night.**

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Moonlight shone through the 37th floor windows on a plump man lying in his 600 thread Egyptian cotton percale bed sheets. A beautiful and much younger woman was down the bed doing things she hadn't learned in Sunday School.

While there were larger buildings all around his, they all belonged to corporations. In turn owned by their committees, and governments or the hijo de puta unions. He owned every lock, stock and brandy barrel of this one.

His penthouse was the entire top floor of his office building, situated on Fifth Avenue, NYC. So it was just a short flip down the stairs to his offices where traders and investors worked 24/7/365. He had only to wander quietly into any office to find the water coolers abandoned in a hurry. His employees dreaded his soft steps.

The building had been purchased it using the investment arm of his protect-me-and-my-money concern. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world. All from selling and monopolizing trade on cell phone use in the poor country of his birth.

NYC was perfect for his needs. There were excellent air transport links to his favorite places. St Petersburg, Moscow and Novosibirsk had the finest looking women in the world. A proportion of them were professionals in the provision of intimate services.

One of his very special pleasures was to get his agent to fly in a Russian working-girl for a week or two. Working-girl was a correct assessment. It was not uncommon for his ingénue of-the-week to possess invaluable information about Forex, or International business trade. The girls would commonly work a proper, sometimes quite important job during the day, and merely sell that she might otherwise have given away for free during the evening. Some had proved so exceptional, he had hired them on and helped them glide through the immigration process.

It would cost him around $10,000 for the flight, and he would pay the girls around $10,000 for the week. That got him a fabulously well educated and motivated whore, who would do anything and everything he could possibly ask. They were good looking, well dressed and secure enough in their own company to be his escort for the week. He was especially happy when they were knowledgeable about the Opera or Ballet. He often had to attend these affairs to meet the powerful and to have someone explain what was going on was very useful.

The girls were happy with the engagement, for they got a first class all expenses paid trip to shop in NYC. Minimal exercise on their part, far less than the rougher customers back home. They also got a fat bonus at the end, and if he really liked you, he could help you get on. The money they got for a week of modern math with this clean old man was worth six months work in rouble-town.

This weeks girl had cost him in total, $30,000. He earned that in the time he slept, after she had supplied him with all the johnson slobbering any man could use. She was easy on the eye, totally obedient and what was nicer, _very_ happy to be here.

Of course, his accountants would curve and shift that expenditure till it looked more akin to the creation of an entire school district for the pure in heart and poor in pocket for some louse ridden hell-hole in Horrible-istan. He would claim it all back from the taxpayer as a charitable deduction.

He patted the girl on the rump, her signal that she was dismissed and settled back to sleep. The girl padded off to her own room. The man had to get some good sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

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They stayed a further week at the Adobe house. They'd paid up three months ahead, so it did not matter if they did not return. Cameron and Catherine shared their training duties for the rest of the week. After the intensity of Friday, all were a wary of escalating the ferocity above sensible levels. Catherine had purchased new clothing for them all, along with uniforms to wear for the heist.

After breakfast on Sunday, Catherine headed out to the garage to start hauling in the new stuff. Uniforms, guns, plastique and shiny new guns! In no time she was swarmed over by hands eager and willing to help haul and investigate. When it was all hauled in, there was much discussion on body armor.

"Catherine, what are we going up against? This is pretty hefty stuff."

"The security forces Heckler and Koch SP89's semi-auto and Glock 19's. The company orders for Ammunition have been for Winchester 9mm BEB, which I think is almost certain to be used for training and range. The other ammunition is exclusively Speer 9mm 124 grain +P."

There was much clicking of tongues at this last. That was a nasty round, and ideal for close quarter combat. The men fingered their body armor thoughtfully.

Cameron said, "We don't anticipate much resistance, and you'll have me and Catherine along to provide back-up and a distraction. They've been there for over 30 years and there has never been an attempt. They don't believe they're going to be attacked, no one has dared. Those who might, don't know it's there."

"They don't have plasma rifles." Said Catherine quietly. "So there's that."

"They don't have machines, either." Reese shivered. He knew only too well what the guards were about to come up against.

"Okay, lets stop feeling sorry for the opposition. The best thing we can do for them is to frighten them into submission. They make it look as if there are a lot of them available, but there are no more than 10 on watch at any one time. You will all be carrying MP5 PDW's, the real thing, full auto, but set to 3-shot. If we have to shoot, we kill."

She looked up. "3-shot, Check."

Five voices rattled out in unison, "Check."

She hesitated for emphasis. "You have Glock 30's, chambered for 45ACP, I've got 5,000 rounds of 230 grain P+P loads. Anyone want to shoot bigger than that?"

A silence followed that was the one she had been anticipating. _**This psy-ops stuff is easy.**_

"You'll have eight 13 round magazines each, while the opposition have one. We have 40 of the new model CTS 7290 flash bangs, so they will think Armageddon is going off all around them when we hove-to. Cameron and me will be carrying fully automatic Saiga 12 gauges, and we have access to an RPG if we think it might be required. Lastly, we have lots of plastique in the form of C4, so we can create more diversions and blow things up if we need to."

"Okay, we'll do a final briefing tomorrow. Relax, but keep it clean."

Catherine had also acquired quite legally, or so it seemed, two new vehicles. A Chevrolet suburban for the men and a Lexus 11 for the girls, my word that girl liked to travel in style. Reese thought about asking her where she obtained the money for all this, but decided against it. He didn't want to know.

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**New York, Monday Morning.**

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When he had first heard his CFO's fix for his ridiculous tax bill, he refused to believe it. A non-government controlled and owned gold depository, in the New Mexico desert? The man was clearly taking that new batch of super pure Columbian that had hit the streets of late.

The requirement, should he wish to join, was to hand over $50,000,000 in used $20 bills was clearly not just loco, but Gringo Loco!

He had laughed uproariously and instructed the accounts manager not to abuse his nose at work.

The more he thought about it, the more obvious it got.

Gold was rising like girls hemlines and taxes, so he would bury a portion of his wealth into the ground and see if it came up diamonds. The cash was in place, that was no problem for a man of his wealth. He had the cash put together and was surprised that it only weighed 1100 lbs. He had it placed in 5 sports bags, each now weighing 220 lbs each. Heavy, but he had strong men for that job.

It was 1000 hours, time to go. His security detail, containing three specially adapted Lexus LX 11's. He would travel in the center vehicle with the cash, to his private plane at Teterboro Airport.

The three Lexii exited the private underground car park of the Fifth Avenue building and made their way to Teterboro. A quick gurgle under the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, which he hated. 31st street to 3 and under the New Jersey Turnpike. Turn right on 17 and up to Teterboro itself. There was some unease in his mind, as he gazed out of the smoked glass windows and then down at the five bags on the floor. They were exposed to the risk of, "The Big Bad City," for 21 minutes and then glided into the fenced off safer areas of Teterboro.

The Lexii group were waved straight through security and direct to hanger 25, where his two pilots and one crew were on board warming up the two Rolls Royce Spey Turbofan jet engines. He was welcomed on board and the five bags were placed and secured in the main cabin. They were in his sight and that of his four men.

The Gulfstream 111 taxied onto the 7,000 feet of runway R-19, and was immediately commenced take-off procedures. The Speys acceleration of 11,000+ lb/ft pushed its passengers back in their seats and thrust the 40,000 lbs of aircraft forward to lift off speed within 23 seconds. Within another three seconds the rear wheels were airborne and they were climbing through the air at nearly four thousand feet a minute.

They were in New York/New Jersey airspace, where speed and altitude were limited by ATC. They remained under 12,000 feet and at 250 knots in this Class B airspace. The Grumman reached the edges of that space above Pennsylvania, and opened its throat. It rocketed upward into the sky, at 505 knots and 45,000 feet it was free.

They would be in Santa Fe in three hours.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Gunfight at Clines Corner**

Monday, December 14th 1998.

The Grumman descended from cruising altitude to 5,000 feet at 5 nautical miles from Santa Fe (SAF). The prevailing ambient wind dictated that it passed the airfield completely and approached from the South-West. During approach, it dropped gently in the sky from 45,000 feet to 12,000 feet. At this point, it was given permission to land by Albuquerque ATC. There is an AT control tower in Santa Fe, but it is not constantly manned, as no commercial flights are due until 2007.

A full crew was on duty today, SAF knew "how to do." The Soothran expression of grace and politesse and an iron rule. The contents of this Grumman were vital. If the wealthy person aboard found the airport to his liking, he would tell his friends and business associates. They would ensure his path was smooth. The control tower noted the Grumman's undercarriage was down, and told the pilot.

At 5 nautical miles and 5,000 ft, (11,638 ft sea level) above SAF it began its final glide into runway 2-20. The great winged beast flickered its wings to change its attitude once before its wheels chittered on contact with the runway, barely noticeable onboard. At 1209 hrs MDT the plane was smoothly on the ground. It taxied to the back of the airport building, and decanted its precious load.

The wealthy man's secretary was unable to obtain Lexus vehicles, so they were slumming it today in three Ford Explorers. The wealthy mans butt was disgusted as the ride was much harsher than the Lexus, and he was cranky. Eventually they were underway, a mere 20 minutes after landing. None of that hanging about like ordinary people, the rich really are different. The convoy was on its way, due south on 599, then North-East on I-25 to 285 South-South-West to the drop at the Depository.

Three hours due South.

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**The Adobe House.**

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The crew finished up what might be their last breakfast at the adobe house. They gathered up their few possessions, and removed anything that identified them. Everyone was given a specific clean-up task to remove DNA evidence of fingerprints, and the dishwasher was filled with everything that had been used. Set to full heat it would provide an autoclave for any trace of humanity. The guns and explosives had been loaded into the vehicles and finally checked by Catherine. They were ready to set off.

A quietude was about them now, a team focused on a task. Armed to the teeth and prepared al dente, just right. The humans wondered, as humans do, whether they would be ready when time called them.

The two cyborgs didn't concern themselves with such doubts. Time to do, they would do, and others would die.

At 1210 hours MDT, the Lexus and the Chevrolet suburban containing two cyborgs, and four spiders from the year 2027 set out to redistribute wealth. To prepare for the arrival of John Connor, and finance the fight against Skynet.

Turn right out of the driveway, north up Caballa De Fuerza Road, right and East by the Polk Horse Stables and onto 333 for the ramp onto Interstate 40.

Three hours due East.

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**Clines Corner**

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Clines corner is the place on the old Abilene Trail where in 1854 four masked and armed robbers, all members of the notorious Cline family, held up the Stagecoach from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque. The Wells company had been plagued with robberies that year. Under a new owner, they had hired a new security chief whose methods were harsh but effective. This particular coach had no paying customers on board, they had payroll for Albuquerque farmers and currency for the banks, and six hardened Pinkerton agency detectives. All were armed with the infamous long barreled "Buntline" Pistol, which could take out a man's eye at 50 feet in the hands of a professional marksman.

The robbers rode the coach down, and while one Cline held his rifle on the driver to hold the horses steady, the rest of the gunmen approached the passengers in the coach. Official records show that the robbers were challenged to put down their weapons, and each detective swore to that. Thirty two rounds were fired by the detectives without reply from the Clines. The robbers bodies were found to contain at least four bullets. Not one of the robbers fired his weapon. No serious enquiry was ever mounted.

Robbing stagecoaches is a dangerous profession.

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Cameron was driving the Lexus, much against Weavers will. Her lead boots would have brought unwelcome attention from the Peelers, so Cameron had insisted. She swung the big SUV onto the off-ramp of I-40 and onto I-285 South. She knew there was a road-house grill immediately south of the junction and drove into it, knowing the men would require feeding, watering and no doubt latrine-ing.

She pulled up at what was an almost empty gas and food road hole. It had last seen cleaning when it was built. Well, it wouldn't bother her, and no doubt Catherine would do her usual trick of sitting exactly one inch above whatever seat she didn't wish to sit on. A young family was just departing, which left two tattoo-ed, bearded motor-cycle riders.

As Reese pulled up alongside, the sound of sirens could be heard from the North and then they saw a convoy of three black SUV's roll into the dusty car park, followed smartly by two wailing police black and whites.

One officer got out of the lead vehicle, the other could be seen frantically calling for assistance on his radio. The lead officer, Cameron could see, was the luckless Officer Dudley with another chance to be a hero which had come too soon. He approached the middle of the three vehicles, his right hand cradling his holstered pistol. Just as he reached the rear quarter-panel the driver got out of the car and before he could draw his pistol, Dudley was shot twice in the chest. His body was thrown backwards and he lay motionless.

Cameron watched, horrified as Catherine rose from her seat and raced out to the fallen officer. Cameron took her Saiga from the rear seat and exited, racking a round into the breech. The center vehicle of the convoy took off in a hail of screeching tyres, small pebbles and dust. At that same moment, three men in black suits exited the lead and following SUV's. They were armed with sub-machine guns. The first in the rear SUV could see Cameron armed with the Saiga and ripped off a burst of automatic fire in her direction. Striking her in the chest and face. Her first shot from the Saiga struck the barrel of his sub-machine gun. Cameron had loaded the solid slugs, and the impact blew the barrel of the sub to bits. After he had quit squirming and yelling about his hand, he tried to reach for the pistol in his belt holster. The click of the breech release from Cameron's dissuaded him. She walked toward him and kicked him in the knee, disarmed him, and tied his hands behind his back with zip ties.

Reese had instantly got his Heckler from the trunk, standing behind the engine block, he shot the tyres from the lead and following SUV's. Shooting was starting in earnest and the confusion and cordite that accompanies these affairs began. Witnesses would later state that the skinny red haired lady who had been holding the cop on the floor was running toward the men with the guns. They had opened fire on her and she had simply waded forward, ignoring the bullets that were repeatedly striking her. She had reached the two shooters unharmed and picked them up as if they were paper.

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**New Mexico State Police.**

**Report to the Commissioner, from Chief of Detectives Brian Donohue Smith.**

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"The following is my report on my investigation into the shooting at Clines Corner Roadhouse. I have made extensive enquiries and followed every lead available and the most reliable witnesses are Mr Winklehaus and Mr Flatbush. These gentlemen are established members of motorcycle clubs and normally resident in Arizona. At the time of the attack, they were seated in the roadhouse, with a good view of the car park. When interviewed they were clearly under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Their toxicology reports are included as BDS 4. This is likely responsible for their vivid version of events relating to the woman made of silver. Strange things do happen in the desert, but more of it is due to intoxication than Area 51. Quite how two girls between them trashed two brand new Ford Explorers with their bare hands which is the sworn evidence of the witnesses, does remain a mystery.

I am unable to offer a theory on that issue.

The facts of the case are as follows. I have redacted certain names on the instructions of Secret Service counsel.

At ... hours on Dec Deputy Dudley badge number 69 was driving south at the speed limit of 55mph on I-285 when he was passed at very high speed by a convoy of three Ford Explorers. He estimates the speed at close to 90 mph and was indeed driving at 110 mph for five miles before he could get close enough to indicate the drivers to stop and pull over. He made requests for back up and was joined by Deputy Cochran BN 2282. The Convoy refused to stop for some eleven miles, at which point they pulled into Clines Corner.

Deputy Dudley approached the center of the three in convoy and was shot twice in the chest. He received heavy bruising and was knocked unconscious, he is otherwise unhurt and will make a full recovery.

A thin red-haired woman erupted from a Lexus SUV already parked in situ and crossed the thirty yards from the SUV to Officer Dudley in what the witnesses describe as, "a flash." In the face of a hail of gunfire from three shooters situated around and about the Explorers, she carried Dudley out of the line of fire behind his Black and White.

She then again crossed the space between Dudley's black and white at a very fast run, during which the witnesses all swear she turned into silver. I am unable to corroborate this. While this was happening, an associate of the red haired woman, an equally slight brown haired girl appeared on the scene. She may have come from the Lexus SUV. She fired shots at an armed man from the convoy and blew his sub machine gun from his hand, while holding a 12 gauge Saiga shotgun with one hand, like a pistol. More shots were fired, from behind all these actors. There followed a period of extensive shooting, when all the tyres of the Explorer SUV's were shot out. Each tyre received three shots, so disabling the vehicles from flight.

It is my opinion this was the action of experienced professional soldiers preventing escape and seeking to conclude the fight there and then.

Then the most peculiar part of this entirely peculiar story took place. The witnesses are adamant that the "silver" woman then approached each of the two remaining Explorer SUV's in turn and destroyed them. I produce the photograph album, evidence tag, BDS 12 to show the damage. The photograph album was passed across, and although the commission had seen some pictures previously, the sheer devastation wrought by apparently human hands left a void of silence in the room. The vehicles look they have been put in a scrap yard and are completely destroyed. In each case, the engine block has been driven by intense pressure through the chassis. I have worked in Alaska, and the damage is uncannily similar to that inflicted on vehicles there when Grizzly bears are hungry after "break-up." The destruction was however, far more intense.

This is obviously impossible by human hand, and I ask that the toxicity reports I have earlier referred to are considered.

The two women got into the Lexus, and gave chase to the Ford Explorer which had left moments ago. The occupants of the Chevrolet Suburban secured the three male shooters who had been in the Explorers and left them tied up under the supervision of Deputy Cochran. Some questions have been asked about the conduct of Deputy Cochran, but it is my opinion that he acted in the best traditions of the service. He was unable to put up any resistance to seven men armed with assault rifles. He called for EMT assistance and stayed with his wounded colleague. He saw little of the activity of the "silver" woman, because he was behind his police vehicle, with Dudley.

Then, the two women returned to the Lexus and drove South on I-285. From the evidence of traffic reconstruction experts, the Lexus driven by the women impacted the rear of the Ford Explorer which had earlier left the scene of Clines Corner. The Explorer was badly damaged, but its occupants largely uninjured. The injured parties were a male visitor from the Ukraine, and a resident of New York City. Both identities have been redacted. Both occupants of the vehicle had been secured by zip ties around their wrists.

In extensive interviews, not one of the occupants of the Ford Explorers have offered an explanation as to why they were within the borders of New Mexico, why they were armed with illegal S.111 assault rifles and why the incident took place.

I ask a recess of fifteen minutes, after which I will present my conclusions."

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TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

The Gunfight at Clines Corner-Part Two.

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1505 hrs, Monday 14th December 1998.

Catherine stalked toward the two shooters from the Ford Explorer, they fired repeatedly at her, with no effect whatsoever. She reached them in seconds and lifted first one off his feet and then the other. As they dangled there, waiting to die, the two men heard an unearthly Scottish voice bellow, "I liked that copper."

Cameron yelled out, "Don't kill them!" As loudly as she could. Killing them would only make things uglier than they had already become. She had no idea why once again, despite them keeping their heads down, trouble had emerged again from nowhere.

The men's legs were dangling in the air like rats and it looked for all the world as if Weaver was going to throw them aloft. Cameron knew they were dead if she couldn't prevent it soon. She yelled again, "Don't kill them!" There was no effect, and Cameron realized she had run out of bullets. It was time to throw her final rock. She wasn't sure if it would work, but she had to try. There was nothing else for it. It would piss Catherine off mightily and Catherine was dangerous enough when she was placid.

Cameron cleared her processes and put her entire effort into making control contact with all cyborgs in her immediate location.

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**New Mexico State Police.**

**Report to the Commissioner, from Chief of Detectives Brian Donohue Smith.**

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Resumption.

The members of New Mexico's ruling authority of Governor, Mayor of Santa Fe, Chief of Police, and representatives from FBI and filed into the room after the break. They took their seats, and with a nod, the Governor signaled Smith to continue his report and conclusion.

"Good afternoon, members of commission. The _silver woman_ was holding both shooters in the air, feet dangling. The witnesses were anticipating a tragedy, when suddenly, the men were thrown down to the ground and the other woman secured and disarmed them. There was a short conversation with each other, and they both then made off South on I-285, presumably in pursuit of the Explorer that had earlier left the scene.

A Black Ford Explorer, license plate XXX XXXXX NM was found abandoned around 20 miles South of Clines Corner. It had damage to its rear indicative of being run off the road by a vehicle from behind. (Smith coughed) This is consistent with the common police practice of driving into the center of a vehicle going forward and the combination of angles and forces ensures the vehicle is taken off road and not to the median. It is presumed that the Lexus occupied by the two women was responsible, although we have not recovered it, or found any trace of them or their accomplices.

Two men were found close to the vehicle, both had been secured, and further secured to road signs adjacent to the highway. Whoever had left them, wanted them to be found. Both men were originally taken into investigative custody, and after communications from Lawyers employed by the Secret Service, have been released to their disposal. Neither men spoke a single word to investigative officers, other than to confirm their names and give details of a telephone number in Washington. DC. The making of that phone call brought the observer officers here today from the FBI and Secret Service.

It is fairly clear from the evidence we have so far been able to develop, that there were four men in the Chevrolet, all armed and apparently quite capable of using and prepared to use their weapons. These types of individuals are not to be found on every street corner.

The two women in the Lexus, we presume to be the leaders of the expedition.

Despite considerable efforts on the part of a combination of law and government enforcement agencies these six individuals have disappeared entirely. Obviously, New Mexico is a vast area, some 2 million square miles, lightly populated and with its major conurbations widely dispersed. While searches over such a wide area are difficult, usually some activity in a lightly populated area is visible via the use of satellite observation.

In the three days since the incidents, we have seen nothing. They seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

In conclusion, There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Most of those things we don't know are in the purview and under the aegis of the gentlemen present here from FBI and Secret Service. As a small force of less than 500 officers, we do not have resources to spend on further efforts to identify or locate the six miscreants missing.

The five individuals in the Ford Explorers are in the custody or protection of the aforementioned agencies.

It is my firm belief that this incident resulted from two groups of opposing criminal intent, who ran across each other on our land, for nefarious purposes and one side won. The other side is saying nothing, and while we could attempt to prosecute the individual who shot the officer, that individual is now in the custody/protection of Government agency.

While the most serious incident that we _know_ about here is the shooting/attempted murder of Officer Dudley, it appears that his body armor has prevent serious injury and there is no doubt that the heroism displayed by the so called "silver" woman assisted greatly in his survival. He is expected to make a full recovery.

In final summation, I recommend we close this case. To be opened again at some later date if further information comes to light."

The officer took his seat, and awaited the decision of the commission. In the current fiscal environment, he knew what that would be.

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1506 hrs Monday 14th December 1998 Clines Corner.

Cameron sent out a pulse with all the power of her CPU. It located only one other Skynet CPU close to her location, that of Catherine Weaver. She did not know if she could control it. Up to now, only more basic models had been contactable and controllable. Since her re-orientation at the hands of Nikopol, she had grown to consider control of others a less attractive proposition. Nikopol had been a citizen of Russia, which all these years after the Tsars, still had a tradition of control over its own citizens. Nikopol had persuaded her that control and forcible direction of individuals was a very bad thing. She had re-inforced and believed in Cameron utterly as an individual, hence this control was very much a last resort.

Catherine was receiving the call, and for a moment she hesitated. Her body jerked and the men danced about further in the air. She looked at Cameron, pure hatred in her eyes, and threw the men to the floor in fury. She took one step back, and stood still.

It was not over, with a shake of her head, Catherine slumped into a puddle of shiny metallic material to the floor. She looked like mercury as she attempted to escape the control. Cameron kept up the pressure and watched as Catherine formed herself into a T-800 and started to move toward the men, at which they started to scream and scramble away. They were tough operatives, but these dames were off some Oprah show they had yet to see.

Using a portion of her autonomous functions, Cameron let out an almighty scream, "BE STILL, OR YOU WILL DIE!" For some reason, it also stilled Catherine, who immediately reforming herself into her Weaver shape, stared at Cameron in something akin to sullen obdurate insubordination. She took one step back and once again, stood stock still. The battle for control, for now, was over. Cameron knew, without a doubt that there would be a later reckoning. For now, no humans were dead, and there was still the question of the runaway Ford.

She called out, "Mr R, secure these men." Reese came running. Cameron raced across to Catherine, saying, "You're the faster driver, lets go get the other one."

There was a momentary millisecond, while Catherine realised the CPU control was off. "This isn't finished," and she ran to the Lexus. The engines started and Cameron only just got herself into the passenger front seat before the vehicle took off like a scalded rabbit and left a rooster tail of gravel chips in its wake. Catherine reached the on-ramp to I-285 and slotted through three lanes of bewildered and terrified passengers. It all looked totally chaotic, as Catherine weaved between cars doing half her speed. She invented a new lane, the one that exists in the tiny gap between the concrete stripe separating the road from the grass of the median and the part that contains the passenger side mirror of most cars. In a ride of just short of 20 miles, the passenger mirror was stripped from 58 cars who didn't get out of the way in time.

In a rare, open stretch of motorway, where Catherine was able to stretch the Lexus up to its full speed of 125 mph. She looked across at Cameron, and said, "Remind me, why are we chasing _this_ Ford, when the one I want to deal with is back there at Clines Corner."

Cameron replied, "I don't know for sure yet."

"Its not YOUR bloody copper that's been shot, is it?"

Cameron shook her head, and could only imagine what was going through Catherine's CPU. She hardly dared imagine what her own reaction would be if it had been John Connor back there on the stones with two bullets in his chest.

She felt agonizing empathy with her sister cyborg, with whom she had been forging a unique partnership. She knew it would be permanently affected by this imbroglio and her imposition of control. She knew it was against their unspoken ethical agreements. No time to think about it now, they had to catch that Ford.

"It won't happen again, Catherine."

"What won't happen again," snarled Mrs Weaver.

"Me taking control."

"Of me?"

"Of you, of anyone hopefully."

"You've got some explaining to do, how can I ever trust you again?"

Just then, they saw the Ford Explorer ahead, the Lexus didn't waste time, but waited till it was in the lane closest to the side of the road in its frantic efforts to escape. She lined it up and drove straight into the back of it. Hitting the rear of any car, half way across the rear fender, forces the energy from the following car to be transmitted to the lead car. This force propels it of control and the Ford went up the banking hit a tree and came to a stop, finally rolling over with a tired sigh of damaged metal and protesting tyres.

Catherine and Cameron raced up to the vehicle and without ceremony tore the occupants out. Cameron ensured she grabbed the driver, she secured him and tied him further to the tree. Catherine grabbed the old man in the rear seats and made a discovery. The man was surrounded by eleven sports bags, which appeared to be very full and for a human, very heavy.

"Oh, look what we've found?" Said Catherine, a ghost of a smile coming back to her fierce visage.

The old man was shaking in abject terror, and then a terrible thing happened. His money and his power had given him total control of the women in his milieu for his entire life. Now, they were simply taking his money away, and he didn't mind, as long as they didn't kill him. Oh no, his body was letting him down, he was getting the stiffest erection he'd had in twenty years. It stuck out of the front of his pants like a tent peg and he looked at it in horror and shame. He was totally in their power and it was giving him this terrible embarrassment.

Catherine opened the bags, they all contained the same thing, heaps and heaps of solid blocks of cash.

Cameron walked across, saw the money and asked, "How much is here?"

"Fifty million dollars, its for an investment property."

Catherine shimmered in and out of her silver apparition appearance. At each change, the old man was more uncomfortable, his erection growing bigger and throbbing like a beast.

Catherine smiled at him, he visibly relaxed in the face but not around his lower extremities. "My friend here, the good looking one, has an investment she needs a lot of funding for. She's trying to save the world, would you like to help?"

"Oh, take it, take it, its all yours" he cried, "I want you to save the world."

Catherine patted him on the cheek, gently, and then smiling, took hold of his erection from outside of his pants. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, its all yours just take it and leave."

The two cyborgs, packed the bags into the trunk of the Lexus and were about to get into the car when Catherine stepped back and said, "Unfinished business, you drive."

Cameron considered for a horrified moment that she was going to kill the old man, and looked in the mirrors where she could see Catherine approach the old man. She saw him kissing him gently on the mouth. She saw Catherine's arm move gently to a rhythm known to lovers and in a moment the old man shuddered and then passed right out.

Catherine walked swiftly back to the Lexus, getting in, she reached for the Kleenex wet wipes.

"I don't suppose I dare ask?"

"Oh, come on, the old boy just gave us $50,000,000 to save the world. You saw the state of his pants."

"I'm an infiltrator cyborg. I was infiltrating, making him feel better about his donation to the cause."

As the Lexus sped down the highway, she used another wet wipe on her chin and grinned. "You are trying to teach me mercy, aren't you?"


	13. Chapter 13

**The Reckoning**

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"There's to be a reckoning, Cameron." Catherine Weaver said with a resigned drop of her shoulders. "Although we are both cyborgs and understand only too well our particular view of relationships, I had come to trust you." She shook her head, "As much as anything."

Cameron was silent.

Catherine looked across the cab. "This connective power you have has come as a surprise to me."

There wasn't much to add. Catherine had it right, so Cameron focused on her driving. It would have been quicker and more effective to terminate the two gunmen.

It might have stirred up the authorities a little more, but it was hard to see how much more. Looking up into the sky, she saw yet another police helicopter, where did the cops find them from? What did they do when they weren't dotting the sky like flies?

They had absquatulated the crime scene with the cash, headed south for 15 miles. Then to hide in plain sight, switched to the northbound carriageway of I-285. Illegally crossing the median through a small clump of trees where cops usually hid themselves for radar work.

Just north of I-40 and I-285, they had stopped at a crowded Mexican restaurant, stolen a Toyota Sequoia and switched the bags to the new SUV.

Now they were headed West toward their planned rendezvous point with the spiders in case the op should go wrong. Cameron driving because she was more controlled and better at hiding within a 'pod' of vehicles as it drove down the highway.

"Did you know it would work on me?"

"I did not."

"You chose your time."

"I did not."

Catherine huffed as if she were about to growl. "This isn't over."

There was a pregnant pause of the type that Cameron had made her specialty.

"Catherine, it isn't what you think. There's a lot more to this than you are yet aware. You were not built with patience in mind, and while you do not scare me, you do intimidate me. That intimidation takes a lot of my processing power to overcome and correctly respond to. I am well aware that in any fight with you, I would lose."

The air in the cab stilled, even the dust motes usually stirred up by the AC were hiding from the silver cyborg's rage.

"I don't want that fight, because I have enormous respect and affection for you. I've grown very fond of you. Above all that, whatever I might want comes second. I, we, have a greater task ahead, I must keep focused on that."

Catherine's eyes widened. "We're cyborgs, we don't have feelings."

Unsure whether this might set Weaver off on another torrent, Cameron took on a soft Edinburgh brogue and quoted her at Clunes Corner. "I liked that copper."

Weaver's facial expression changed from the haughty anger of a moment ago, and softened. "Do you think he'll be alright?"

"Yes, he was wearing a vest. He was hit with two rounds of .40 frangible, which the vest absorbed. He will have a couple of ugly bruises, but he'll be okay. He is strong, healthy and vigorous."

"Oh good." Weaver had forgotten her anger of a few seconds ago, and was off woolgathering about her six-foot log of wood.

"Catherine!"

"Uh."

Catherine was silent, she knew Cameron was referring to Connor. This was torrent of words from one who more usually cheese-pared them. Weaver remained silent, letting that silence speak for itself and crank up the pressure on her interlocutor.

Cameron resumed. "You are built for battle, I am not. For the moment, please just be assured that we are on the same side. I will explain when things calm down a bit and we are out of immediate danger of discovery."

Catherine finally replied, her voice quiet with menace. "I don't want control from another, again." She hesitated, and then unusually for her, spat loudly. "I had enough of that from Skynet, and I'm not going to put up with it from you."

Cameron was again silent while she considered her response. She would not give a guarantee she could not keep, but she had to cool this now. "I'm sure you don't, and nor do I."

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They made their way through the traffic and confusion and met up with the spiders at the back-end of a Chinese restaurant that had closed down only recently. In the generally optimistic market of the time, some fool of a Brit had taken a shine to being served with Asian beauties with slit skirts and too much make-up. He had invested his life savings in outfitting and hiring the best folks for front of house. His big mistake was not being able to find a decent chef who could cook Chinese food. Being Brit, of course, the idea of food that was worth eating was utterly foreign to him.

Despite the quite delicous girls and fabulous front of house the food was junk and the restaurant died swiftly. The Brit's money was all swallowed up in the debts.

Derek Reese stood in the kitchen and waited for the two cyborgs to make their appearance. Today's operation had been an almighty fubar, and who knew what it had all been about? They had secured the shooters, and escaped.

They would wait for the cyborgs till around midnight and then scarper once again. The cyborgs would find them, that's what they did.

He heard the burbling engine of the Toyota Sequoia as it drove into the parking area at the rear of the restaurant building. It was late, they were late. He saw the two cyborgs speak to one another in a way, which, if they were human would look like bickering. Attitude, slamming doors, grim faces, the lot.

Uh oh.

Weaver hit the back door like an angry tornado, for a moment, he thought of asking what was wrong. Then decided against it. Cameron followed shortly afterwards, carrying four bags. He reached to take a couple.

"They're heavy, just take one."

Forgetting that cyborgs are cyborgs is part of the inevitable difficulty of relating to them. Derek took the handles of two bags. With a slight shake of her head, Cameron released them. To give Derek credit, he never let go the handles as they took him to the floor like a lump of lead.

Furious with himself for not listening to her, again. Dammit, he thought. You might successfully ignore women, you can't cyborgs. Grunting from exertion, he hefted a single bag and followed the cyborg to the cold room. Cameron strode forward with the slightest apparition of a grin on her chops.

Reese, who had dealt with cyborgs since the awful beginnings of J-day was, despite himself, confused by this one. This one knew what you were thinking, even though you didn't think you were thinking it yourself, but you were. She was as difficult to deal with and as impossible to understand as were all women, and he just never knew how to handle her.

"It would be smarter, if anyone is observing us, to allow me to transfer the bags. With me carrying them, they will not look heavy. It is not logical for you to struggle with them. While I, a mere girl, can lift them easily."

"Ah, fer ****s sake." Said Derek as he nearly fell again with just one bag bouncing between his knees. "I was just trying to help."

Cameron looked coldly at him. "Hows that working out for you?"

Catherine was waiting in the upstairs front room. Once the bags were stored in the cold room everyone joined her there.

"This is our home for the next couple of months. Cameron and me will secure the funds tomorrow. In the meantime, get some rest."

The Restaurant was a traditional store front building with four storeys. The men could find rooms away from the cyborgs. No one trusted the bedding, but they had come from worse in the future. They figured the silver one would sort things out in the morning, hit the floor and were soundly asleep in minutes.

The two cyborgs stood in the front first floor room looking out on the low-rent area, while both their central processing units were playing probabilities with the circumstances. An onlooker unfamiliar with the ways of cyborgs might have considered them meditating. Connor was years later to remark that this was one of the least efficient uses of the machine. Machines were ultimately at their best doing what they were designed to do. Connor thought cyborgs meditating was analogous to aeroplanes sitting on the tarmac doing nothing. Not flying, not carrying passengers, not earning money.

Humans often made this mistake when considering the machines. They thought terminators were only efficient when killing. Machine meditation, to human eyes was the exact equivalent of the aeroplane on the ground, sat idle.

After 32 minutes 44 seconds of complete external inactivity, the two had come to their decision.

Weaver knew that whatever Cameron decided to do about the control function, her place was clear. She was in this fight to the end. Whatever the consequences, up to and including her own destruction, nothing would change that.

Cameron feared Weaver, but she could not take the control function away. It was there, and if she had to use it again, she would. Lying to Weaver would only delay the action she would take when she found out the lie. Might as well face it now. Weaver might destroy her, she could not prevent that.

She turned to the liquid metal terminator, and was about to speak. Weaver looked into her eyes, shook her head and said, "No. I understand. More than you think."

"I would never-."

Weaver held her hand up, in the universal sign for _**stop**_.

"I understand you have the function and that you cannot turn it off. I would prefer that you don't use it, ever. I am designed for action, not reflection. For now, I ask that you are careful with it."

"Catherine, since you now know I have it, I am certain that I won't need to."

They were silent again for another 42 seconds. Weaver was considering Cameron's words, and Cameron was waiting for the reaction to them.

"Well, big brain. What's next?"

Cameron's beautiful face turned slightly, the glow of the sodium street lamp shining through the dirty glass of the window giving her skin an inhuman pallor.

"For the mission, we need to secure the funds."

"Can't you stash it on the Farm?"

Cameron shook her head vigorously, "No. This has the potential to go badly wrong. I don't want Joe or Emily anywhere near it, they've had enough trouble already."

"We're at war, there will be trouble."

They both heard the click of the Toyota car door open, and raced to the back of the building where they saw the car being broken into. A young man was hot-wiring the system.

Catherine was about to go out and extirpate the unfortunate thief when she felt a hand on her arm, she looked back, expecting to see Cameron.

Reese had appeared like a ghost. Cameron noted he had approached silently enough that neither terminator had noticed. She regarded Reese with a new-found respect. Reese held Weaver's furious gaze. "Hold on, you just stole that car just earlier today, let him have it."

The two terminators looked at each other in complete surprise. Reese daring to place hand on Weaver, when she was in a killing mood?

"You go out there, kill him, we'll have a stolen wagon and a dead body. This way, the stolen car is nowhere near us. If he's caught, he won't say where he got it from, we're clear of it."

"Ease off . We have stacks of money. We'll go out in the morning and buy us a whole bunch of cars, legally. For now, we have to stay off the grid, out of sight, out of mind, remember?"

"I liked that car." Said Weaver, almost plaintively. "It was nice and clean. You mucky humans hadn't had chance to foul it up."

Reese smiled. "What's with you Catherine? First you like the cop, now the damn car. What's with the cop? He's just a cop. No one important."

Catherine stared haughtily at Reese, "He's my cop."

As the Sequoia screeched out of their car park, she pouted at Reese, "I want a nice car, not some old smelly heap, you hear?"

In the moonlit glow of the late night kitchen, Cameron and Reese cracked up. Weaver huffed and walked away.


	14. Chapter 14

**A Hard Day's Shopping**

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As the sun broke over the horizon, Cameron was at the drive-thru Mcdonalds. She had no real idea what the men might want, they were sleeping, snoring and farting when she last went by their rooms.

So, she ordered two items of almost everything on the menu that appeared meaty, fatty, sugary and bad for you. No doubt, being human, they would fall upon this like ravening wolves. She felt indulgent toward them, they had behaved well and worked hard. Their future might be very tough indeed and with Skynet beginning its birth they might be required to make the ultimate sacrifice at any time. Despite the smell, they were good honourable men. Each carried the vile signature of Skynet on their arms, so their commitment to the resistance could not be questioned.

They would fight till they were dead, and then they'd haunt the enemy.

They deserved a fat-loaded heart attack breakfast every now and again. They hadn't eaten since yesterday lunch-time, so they were slavering now.

The drive-thru assistant took her money, only slightly taken aback at the huge stack of $20 bills she saw poking out from Cameron's pocket-book.

As she arrived back at the Chinese Restaurant, bags in hand, they greeted her like a long-lost lover. Cheery smiles all around as hungry teeth dug into processed cheese and meat. She watched astonished as Reese consumed four vast cheese steak burger things one after the other. Where did he put that? No, she didn't wish to know, but she was sure if he kept on he would pop!

The others were no different. This was doing strange things to her processor. Clearly, the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. The evidence was before her, proven to her complete satisfaction. If this was all it took to keep John Connor by her side, the job would be easier than she had initially feared. Perhaps he would get rather fat, and she would have to organise activities to keep him in shape. She would think of something. Humanity was soo awkward and pitifully lacked logic!

Cameron was sure that the goodwill she had earned by supplying the food would have lasted at least the morning. However, when Cameron asked for two volunteers for, "shopping" it all disappeared. The moaning and bitching started immediately. What was wrong with a little shopping? They all needed good clothes, they stank like skunks and the jeans they had on could stand up on their own in the corner of the room they had so much grime. The team needed vehicles, supplies, tools and food for the humans.

Catherine breezed in and brought a little order to the brawling mob. Her mere presence brought silence.

"I need two volunteers to help me shop. If I don't get two volunteers, I will appoint two and give the two who don't volunteer another job." She laid emphasis on, 'another'. Engaging each man in eye contact, one after the other. The men, despite being men, weren't completely stupid, they knew the other job would make latrine duty like visiting playboy mansion.

Four arms shot up, "Timms and Goode 30 minutes here, ready to go, clean and showered! Reese and Sayles,, report to Cameron after you're clean."

The men scrambled away from the table and headed upstairs.

Cameron, mystified, said, "They don't have soap, towels and the rest."

Catherine grinned, "They do now, I went out to Wal-Mart in the night."

"Oh."

"You put up with too much nonsense from these men, Cameron."

"But-."

Catherine barked, "Stop talking. They are men. Filthy, lazy and creatures entirely lacking moral fibre unless beaten into them. You be that hammer, and teach John Connor. This is a free trial, no harm, no foul. You can afford to f*** this up. You cannot with Connor. These are your, "experiments."

Catherine put on that feral grin and growl she used when she wanted to emphasise something.

"You need to put a bit of stick about to keep them in order. They know that's what they'll get from me if they mess me about."

"But, Cath-."

"Cameron, where are they now?"

Cameron, mind shutting down under this blitz of silver authority, stood there silent, mouth opening and closing like a confused fish.

"Good, I'll tell you what they are doing. The four S's, Showering, **itting, shaving and shampoo-ing. Because the silver murderess told them to. You think I don't know what they call me behind my back?"

She flashed a brilliant Edinburgh smile of triumph, "About time too, if they continued smelling like they do, I was going to put them into the autoclave."

Cameron looked at the huge restaurant's autoclave."What, that?-But they wouldn't survive-oh." The light went on and she smiled in recognition. "Better they shower, then."

"Right. As you might say, cleanliness is next go Godliness." Catherine walked off, heels clicking, job done.

Cameron nodded. She wistfully wished she could have the same action parameters that Catherine was built with. It made some things so much quicker.

Two spiders remained permanently in the building with the money, along with one cyborg.

At the auto dealer, five minutes after the salesperson was into his patter, she held up her hand. With a weary sigh, she said. "Mr Sutter, I already told you to stop selling me the car. I want the car. What I want to do is buy the damn thing, get out of her and not have to listen to this crap."

Mrs Smith, "There are formalities. I'm sorry, but we have to clear your credit."

"You clearly did not hear me the first time round. I will pay cash, you do not need to check my credit. It is here." She showed him an envelope containing $150,000. "Now, before my temper and patience desert me entirely, will you go and get the damn car ready?"

Mr Sutter hared off out to the finance manager and the office manager and the sales floor manager, and even the man who owned the store. All men, Catherine noted, who couldn't organise a porn movie in a prison without 58 sheets of paper to support the activity.

Tired of the aggravation, she handed her contact details to the hapless Mr Sutter. Instructed the spiders to get into the demonstration vehicle they had been test driving and got into the driver's seat herself. The cadre of car men, helpless, stood around the car. Catherine turned to Goode, "Mr Goode, what is the price tag?"

Reading off the side window sticker, he said, "$79,426, ma'am."

Flicking through the pack, Catherine counted out $80,000 and threw it at the amazed dealer. "Open the showroom windows, Mr Sutter-NOW."

Mr Sutter complied, the windows slid back and Catherine drove off with her perfect, brand new light green clean Lexus LX. She had fallen in love with a machine. It had been love at first sight.

They shopped at a bedding place where a shocked young man was persuaded that a sale was on provided the beds, mattresses and accoutrements could be delivered TODAY. Cash purchased action.

It was a perfect storm of shopping at Wal-Mart, but no delivery was possible, so both Goode and Timms struggled with carts overflowing. Moaning and griping out of Catherine's earshot, (or so they thought) because she had parked the brand new unscratched car as far away from the front door as was possible. She wanted it to stay undinged.

As they approached the Lexus, she saw that in the space where she had parked the Lexus, no fewer than eight cars had parked right next to her. "A little pod of lost sheep" she said to herself irritably. Goode and Timms had seen and heard, but wisely said nothing.

Catherine had just blipped the doors to the SUV when three men wearing doo rags stepped out from behind the adjacent truck. Instantly, they drew down on Timms and Goode. One of the men spoke, addressing his remarks to Catherine, leader to leaderene. "That wasn't very smart of you, spending all that cash in the Wal-Mart. People talk. Lots of people could use money like that."

Weaver held his eye, at the same time checking the activity of the two gunmen with weapons on Timms and Goode. It would be a far easier problem to deal with if the three men had attacked her alone. She could have killed them all and washed her hands of it. Now she had two humans with her and she'd have to load the car herself if they were injured.

Drat it, the world could be an inconvenient place at times.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Catherine Weaver and I am a robot from the future. Do not stand in my way. Things could go very badly for you."

All three laughed. The man with his gun on Weaver pulled back on the safety trigger of the Glock semi auto, making it ready for action. "Hand over the fucking cash, NOW-bitch."

Andy Goode muttered under his breath, "Oh shit." Sparks were about to fly. He'd heard Weaver tell them who she was, and that was their death warrant. It was just a matter of time, he reckoned that time was pretty close. Even when the spiders were horsing around among themselves, they never used the "B" word.

Catherine sighed, deciding to give the impossible cause one more try. Cameron, goody-two-pairs-of-knickers would moan endlessly if she offed these dregs of society. They were a total waste of space and oxygen, but Cameron would gripe about their eternal souls. Catherine would be bored into an early scrapyard.

"You see this?" She smiled bleakly. This is my version of a disarming smile. If you take your Glocks and go, you may live. If my disarming smile doesn't work-" Her smile tightened, "You won't. Life is all about choice, gentlemen."

The big man took one step forward, intending she thought, to pistol whip her into subservience.

Catherine knew she had to disarm the men holding guns on Timms and Goode first, so she shot her arms forward. Taking hold of the slide of each weapon, she slid it back, making the pistol impossible to fire. She wrenched the pistols down, breaking both mens right index fingers and thumbs. She threw the weapons to the ground. She punched each man very hard on the ribcage, just underneath the heart. This broke four ribs and shocked the heart into momentary stoppage, rendering them both instantly unconcious.

Unfortunately, the remaining gunslinger was able to get off four rounds, all of which impacted into her back and were absorbed into her body. As his shock wore off at her still standing, she was going to just knock him out like the others, but decided to offer him a little vengeance for name calling. She turned on him and using the index and second fingers of her right hand, formed them into thin steel proboscis. She poked them up the villains nose, entering his sinuses. She remained there for a few seconds while he screamed in agony at the horror of metal spiders in the three facial sinuses. It felt like a lifetime's pain, which in reality lasted but 10 seconds. Catherine withdrew. "That's for calling me a bitch." She cracked him a savage blow under the heart.

She instructed Goode and Timms to help her, "Don't stand there, imitating porridge, help me." They placed the men back in their truck sitting upright, apparently asleep. She found two bottles of Bourbon on the floor and poured it liberally over them. They stashed their goods in the Lexus and drove home sedately.

"How come you let them live, after you told them what you are, Ms Weaver?" Said Timms nervously.

"I'm tired of clearing up the mess from humans," she replied.

The battle adrenaline had left both men hungry, and getting hungrier still as Catherine drove successively past drive-through providers of gut-heaven. They spoke among themselves, egging each other to ask her to stop and let them eat.

"Okay, okay." I'll stop, provided you eat in the restaurant, and wash your hands before and after you eat. I'll know if you don't."

She stopped at the next, "Gutbusters" and another steer fell to its eternal rest in Texas.

Arriving back at the Spider HQ, they were just in time to see the bedding truck drive away.

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More food in the kitchen, stores put away, tools to the toolroom, the men were knackered and went to bed after yet more fast food. Cameron would set up some sort of food organizational schedule in the morning. Tonight was time to rest.

The men had taken four of the five bedrooms available, so once again, the two girls/cyborgs were room-mates. After getting into bed, they shared the events of the day so far. Without knowing why, they had both found this daily review of events and planning the next had become an important part of their relationship. Cameron had taken to calling it, "Evening Prayers". Catherine initially scoffed, but was finding it a useful outlet to her inevitable frustrations of the day. Cameron enjoyed the look at the world through another's eyes and it was an immense help in seeing how Catherine could be of use to the resistance in future. She felt reasonably sure that her calm outlook helped Catherine's violence to smooth out.

This night, things were slightly different. Catherine asked, "Why are you agitated?"

"I need to get back to the farm, I miss Joe and Emily."

"Do you think we can trust the spiders here, alone, for a few days?"

"They managed okay before us, now they have proper food, they'll be alright." Cameron smiled, "Anything you need to get back for, Catherine?

"Nothing in particular. It would be nice to see how Mr Dudley is."

"I can find that out for you. You can stay here with the spiders, and I'll call you as soon as I know."

Catherine smiled guiltily. The wily Cameron had found her out. "No, I'll come along and find out myself."


	15. Chapter 15

**Love In The Afternoon.**

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It was Sunday morning and the holy trinity of Cameron, Joe and Emily had left for Church.

Catherine was sitting on the porch, replaying a scene from last nights conversations with Joe and gently smoothing **TFC*** when a State Patrol police cruiser rolled to a stop in the driveway a soft sussurous marking its arrival. More difficult to surprise Catherine than annoy her, but this arrival did cause her some concern. _**What did the Polis want here?**_

Mozart got up and slid away for quieter pastures. Cats knew trouble when it was coming, and she didn't like loud noises. Coppers were big, by nature fugly and built LOUD. She'd seen them before, all sturm und drang.

If Catherine had a heart, it would have skipped a beat when out of the car stepped her own favourite 6'4" long log of wood, Officer Dudley.

Catherine smiled her frozen glacier of welcome, "Good Sunday morning Officer Dudley, what can I do you for?"

The big lunk looked quizzical for a moment. Then he smiled and tipped his hat, "Good morning Miss Weaver, is this a convenient time?" He held onto the car door as if he might need a swift escape.

Catherine was intrigued. The man clearly had courage, few men were capable of holding her eyes. Most gave her a very wide berth after they survived a first encounter. Was he one of that rare breed of men, who actually liked strong women?

The warmth of the sun, and the peace and quiet had left Catherine feeling quietly mischievous. She decided there was time for a little sport in her life. A time for play.

"A good time for what, Officer Dudley, are you going to spank me for being a bad girl?" She smiled wickedly, permitting the smile to travel from her lips to her eyes.

For a moment, Dudley was taken aback, gauging the smile on her face. "The thought had crossed my mind." His gallic shrug wasn't perfect, but it was close enough for Government work. She feigned outrage for a moment, but the sun was shining and she was bored, dammit. All this Cameron induced calm was driving her batty. Maybe she could while away a idle hour with the woodentop.

Her smile relaxed and Dudley let go the door of the car, "but I've left my paddles at home." He grinned like a big kid.

"Only one other human activity relieves stress better than humour, eh?" Said Catherine, and only half turned the menace off. She watched Dudley, as Mozart might lazily watch a mouse. She didn't say what she was thinking, "_**Am I going to eat you, or just play with you a little**_?"

"Come in Officer Dudley, let me get you a cup of tea and you can tell me what I can do for Santa Fe's finest."

"Ms Weaver, the Department have a special medal we forge for citizens who assist the police, and who go beyond the normal parameters of citizenry. You've been cited and awarded the City of Santa Fe "Good Citizen" medal.

"A medal, for me?"

"Yes, Ms Weaver, the department have made it my duty today to give you one-er, medal."

"To give me one?" She smiled deliciously, "Then you had best do your duty Officer Dudley."

"Officer Dudley, what are your intentions?"

Dudley smiled confidently, "Catherine, I have to admit that it is my intent to separate you from your panties."

"I'm not wearing panties, Officer Dudley." _I'm wearing a thong underneath sheer La Perla French Knickers. Which is for me to know, and for him to find out if he dare. No need to rush things. _She thought.

"The things you police officers have to investigate nowadays. Things have come to a pretty pass."

Officer Dudley had that look about him, an undergraduate in the presence of Einstein. She had "got" him again. She was the sharpest knife in the block.

Catherine led Dudley back into her room. It was Sunday morning and the holy trinity would not be back for two hours. Historical evidence indicates human males usually required on average no longer that 22 minutes to complete the entire arc of love-making. Catherine's experience was that it had been considerably shorter than that. She was feeling rather keen to get this sharing experience under way with Dudley, and he was unquestionably hot to trot. She expected they could accomplish what needed to be done in less than 22 minutes.

Dudley followed at her heels. He was intimidated, but thankfully all the blood had left his brain and was now supplying nutrients to a lower part of his body. Catherine's outfit was clearly designed to set fire to the male lizard brain. Her hair was the russet red he was used to, but today it was burnished gold, flowing and dancing across her neck and back. Her cut-glass, well, mimetic poly-ally shoulders were clearly delineated underneath the thinnest, sheerest nightgown he had ever seen. It revealed the gentle curving lines of her hips as they cascaded to her thighs.

Catherine opened her bedroom door, and yanked Dudley into the room and into a full-throttled embrace. As she pulled him closer, the material of her dressing gown overstretched and it fell from her shoulders. She was revealed in her full armour of boy shorts and a tiny sheer bra. She also wore a shy smile on her face as the robe slipped to the floor.

"Ooops!" She said.

Dudley took in the glorious view of Ms Weaver in her little French knickers and a lacy bra which appeared to be full of holes. It left almost nothing to the imagination. Excellent news, because right now, he didn't require any. She held him tight while they kissed and magically, as soon as he put his fingers in the waistband of the knickers, gravity intervened and they fell gently, but inexorably to the floor. Fulfilling their design criteria to perfection.

Dudley, sweating and slippery with desire, has trouble undoing the clasp of Catherine's bra. He stopped kissing her and looking her in the eye, said, "Why won't this bra come off. I don't usually get this much trouble."

Catherine, sensing an opportunity for putting her man on the back foot, said, "You are an acknowledged expert in the swift removal of ladies underwear?"

Dudley coloured up and mumbled ineffectively. When in a hole, it is generally best to stop digging. Something that generally endeared him to Weaver. However, she continued.

"Are you an expert in removing underwear from women? Then, she decided to be cruel. Or from yourself, Officer Dudley?"

His face was bright red at this point and his eyes on hers, he did not notice as Catherine removed the bra by the simple expedient of absorbing it back into her body. As his eyes focused again, he could see her naked breasts revealed, soft, pliant, perky and perfect. She was soooo perfect.

Catherine stood there, resplendently naked but for the thong and Dudley's heart hammered like a hell-hound as he gamely tried to shuck his uniform pants at the same time as his uniform belt. Catherine fishing at his shirt buttons. Cuffs, extra magazines and all manner of accoutrement were falling left and right.

At last he was naked. All six foot four hunk of testosterone fuelled solid wood log. Catherine licked her lips like a cat about to eat something tasty.

"Catherine, you are perfect."

In a moment of confusion, Catherine said, "Dudley, you do know what I am, don't you?"

He looked downwards, her eyes followed his down. "Oooh!" She said.

"Does it really matter, Catherine, does it look as if my body cares?"

All other questions seemed irrelevant at that point as his passion overtook him.

She smiled and pushed Dudley backwards onto the bed. Intending to leap upon him and demonstrate that cyborg efficiency included all and every activity.

Dudley landed on the bed, at an oblique angle. As soon as his smooth, clean skin made full contact with the silk sheets, the momentum sent him skeetering across the bed. He fell off the other side, smacking his head on the floor with an ugly thud.

Catherine swore under her breath and ran round the other side. Too late, He was out for the count. No percy filth for the time being. She, checked his vital signs and picked up his unconcious body. She placed him gently on the bed. Politely, she patted his peerless pestle and whispered under her breath, "My word, you are a big boy."

She wondered idly whether she could properly make use of the perfectly magnificent tumescence clearly undisturbed by Dudley's complete lack of brain function.

For some reason the unwelcome image of Cameron dressed as a nun, shaking her head intruded onto her CPU's lustful imagery and extinguished the heat burning throughout her excited body.

Jeepers, back at Skynet hell, there were greys leaping on her every day. She had gotten tired with the mechanics of that real quick. Now she was hot-to-trot, she couldn't seem to get laid in a house of ill-repute.

If this carried on, she'd have to kill someone.

She covered up Dudley and went to make a cup of tea.

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Catherine was waiting impatiently in the kitchen, drinking her cup of Oolong Nilgiri in frustration, when she heard sounds of life coming from her bedroom. She got up, filled a glass with water and was about to head there, when she heard a male voice.

"Catherine, get here this minute!"

Catherine, so shocked she could hardly think, was overtaken by a frisson of sexual anticipation and excitement. A man, a mere man instructed her? That would be a first, she thought.

"I'm feel the need, the need for you, so get in here and give me my due." She heard the deep bass demand with a girlish delight. Perhaps the man was not a rocket scientist, but he did make it plain indeed that he wanted her, and wanted her badly. In itself, this was enough to set off her pheremone production centres, and get her juices flowing.

She raced into the bedroom, to find Dudley sprawled smiling across the bed. He was too long for it, so he lay askew. Catherine remembered how handsome he was in his uniform. Out of it he was just as impressive. She leapt on him, feeling a steel bar pressing against her abdomen. The ironic circularity of steel meeting steel, did not escape her thoughts.

They made love with an unbridled passion that neither had experienced before. For Catherine, the nasty evil gropings of the greys were forgotten with this lust filled man, whose body she felt in synch with from the moment she had first seen him.

Catherines pheremones and body structure were such that she could feel pleasure at any point. She could innervate any part of her that pleased her. It was not dissimilar to the human system, other than that their pleasure structures and nerves were more or less in the same place, person to person. Hers could be, if she directed it, anywhere at all. She could reach a fizzing completion to an act of love from her foot being stroked with care-if she so chose.

This Sunday afternoon, steel met steel and they made love with the ferocity of tigers. She bit him. He bit her. They threw each other around the bed with an abandon and a glory in each other's physicality that left her inebriated. Dudley was big, strong, considerate and could not get enough of her. Her ego was flattered and her nerves shattered by his persistent power.

Her perfumed garden was visited again and again by his peerless pestle. They stopped, started, stopped and restarted.

That had never happened to her before, she was just a machine, a resource. Not a person, nothing of value other than her usefulness. That could not have applied to Dudley, and he had still faced death to try to save her.

What drew her to this man was his lack of fear. He seemed unwary of her, mostly. Most men were intimidated into wallflowers within moments of encountering her force majeure. Dudley had torn forward INTO the bullets aimed for her, and had forced her to re-evaluate everything. No one had cared a rats arse about her before. This man had risked his life, taken two bullets to the chest, to try to save her.

She was not given to tears, but the memory of that day, when the first person to care about her in this whole world was shot by these criminals brought a gloss to her eyes. Her entire being was incandescent. Had Cameron not controlled her, she would have torn the shooters apart.

This love-making was the sure and certain culmination of the affections sparked by that single act of courage. She was not given to warm thoughts, but in the afterglow of their love-making, she was consumed with a concern for her man that she had felt for no other. It was not perfect, he was not, nor was she, but he would do. Perhaps Cameron was right about these humans, after all.

They made love for hours, Dudley was gentle and fierce and after three hours or so of his endless ministrations, she felt as floppy as she had been when she had melted herself to try to escape Cameron's control. Her entire body was alive with pleasure.

Her damascene moment had arrived. Prior to this point, everyone, starting with Skynet had regarded her as a robot. Even those that did not know what she was, considered her apart. This man wanted to be with her, inside her, mixed with her, part of her.

That was it, she thought, "I'm alive. For the first time, I'm truly alive."

She and Dudley had expended much energy and he had fallen into a deep sleep. Catherine examined the time, and realised that it was four hours past the time when the holy ones should be back from church. Where were they? Never mind, she wanted to be with her man, who was so lovely and warm. She snuggled her head onto his shoulder and bathed in sweat, gloried in the shared flesh. She went into stand-by mode.

Some time later, she heard movement and sound in the kitchen. Catherine's time showed 0600 hours Monday morning. She had been on stand-by all night. She nuzzled into Dudley once again. Oh, he was so lovely and warm and she loved to be warm.

There was a knock at the door, and Cameron walked in with a tray bearing toast and coffee. Dudley was still out for the count. Cameron laid the tray down on the bedside table and smiled at Catherine. "Did you have fun?" She whispered. "It sure sounded like it."

"What, you heard us? Oh dear." She put her hand to her mouth, "You were out!"

"We came back around 4pm and heard-noises coming from your room. We went for a walk down to the river to give you some privacy." She smiled again, "When we came back at 6pm, you were quiet. I looked in on you, but Dudley was asleep and you were on stand-by, so I left you alone."

"Cameron, it was the most wonderful thing," Catherine said breathily, her eyes glistening, her body was still outrageously alive. She stretched a lazy hand over Dudley's massive chest. "It was the most fun I've ever had."

"You must try it." Catherine sipped her coffee and smiled innocently. "I could show you."

"I dance Man."

The two cyborgs eyes locked. Both knew, with a crystalline, inevitable clarity what that meant.

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*TFC That ****ing Cat.


	16. Chapter 16

**It Never Rains In Albuquerque.**

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Derek woke instantly. In the grogginess of his just awake state, he was unsure if he had been in the grip of a nightmare or not. Life was so peaceful here in the past in comparison to the future he had come from that he often found it hard to sleep.

As his alertness grew, he heard the patter of drizzle against the windows. Very unusual for this part of the South Western USA, that must have been what woke him. He was lying there, contemplating whether to return to the land of nod. It was an intriguing, pleasant thought, only questioned by the state of his bladder.

Then he thought he heard the sussurous of quiet voices.

His soldiers mind was instantly alert. He did not spring from the mattress, but carefully rolled the bedding off his body and slowly, not alerting the bedsprings, slid from the bed and placed his feet gently on the floor. His adrenaline, sending maximal support to his ears, noted that there was no sound but the rain against the windows.

What had caused that sound of voices? Steel people wandering around? No matter how friendly they seemed outwardly, he had seen them operating, killing and flaying soft bodied people. He would never trust them, ever.

He retrieved his Glock 37 from the nightstand and felt the upper to ensure it had one in the chamber. Bugger safety, he always had one in the chamber. All that silly clicking would give a warning to anyone he was about to shoot. Aim, fire, problem solved.

Not putting on his shoes, he eased out of his room to investigate. His bare feet swished across the wooden floors, which hadn't been cleaned in who knows when. There wasn't enough light to check the floor as he was going, while keeping an eye trained on the pistol and his direction. No doubt, any second he would step on something painful. He steeled himself for the impact. With his luck, it was guaranteed to be some rusty, tetanus infected razor sharp shredder.

He heard some light whispering, then a strangled cry as he hurried toward the sound. Whoever was talking didn't seem to be too bothered about concealment. What the hell was it, who was it? He wondered where the fucking cyborgs were. They were just like cops, never around when you need 'em, and like a bad smell refusing to leave when you didn't.

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The two cyborgs stood silent and still in front of the second floor bedroom window. Catty-corner to one another. A position naturally providing maximum peripheral vision. Two real Medusas, alive and gazing on Scylla and Charybdis. In Our Time. To an onlooker, they were completely inactive. Wirelessly, they were sharing information.

This could only be noted by the occasional movement of Catherine's face and eyes. The slight surprise was testament to the information mostly passing from Cameron to her.

Without ever knowing precisely why, they gathered here when things required resolution. For over an hour, there had been no speech.

The spiders had taken the bedrooms on the first floor, and much preferred the cyborgs to congregate on another floor. A mask of civility obtained during the daylight hours. The men found Cameron personable and mostly mildly scary.

Catherine scared the crap out of everyone who had a grain of sense. Most of the men avoided contact with her whenever possible.

The night brought wandering, non-sleeping cyborgs. Real, visceral nightmares for humanity. Separate arrangements were made without discussion.

Cameron's pale face reflected in the tear-streaked window of an Albuquerque night, and sodium street lighting shining through lent an unearthly vision of deadly, unmoving beauty.

Eventually, Cameron spoke, "Catherine, is it possible for a cyborg to be haunted?"

Catherine's face registered quizzical surprise. She moved her head a fraction of an inch and gazed intently at Cameron while her flying mental processes tried to whittle out an answer. Which completely evaded her.

Cameron started to babble, "I spend half my time thinking of how and when I killed-murdered Allison Young. I know I was under the control of Skynet at the time, but I'm still responsible."

Catherine sighed heavily, "Firstly, you are a machine, what you feel is an agglomeration of neural impulses sent through your synapses to induce pheremones within you. Those pheremones create a reaction to your organic components..."

Cameron shook her head and held her hand up.

Apparently the stronger, Catherine had been unnerved by the incident at the roadhouse. She trusted her fellow cyborg at her word not to use the control feature she possessed. Like all cyborgs, she was perfectly aware that if and when the mission required, it would be used. Leaders being hard to find, Catherine's nature was to take charge.

These days she danced with a little more caution around Cameron.

"Catherine, I know. Of course I know. Tell me, just how is that different from how humans _feel_? They receive constant stimuli from their surroundings, to which they react with differing levels of control."

"Since you put it like that, I..."

Cameron's left hand twitched. Catherine's words stilled instantly. Catherine eyed Cameron steadily, somewhat irritated by the repeated gesture. Although, was it a repeated gesture, or a twitch?

"Why am I irritated? I'm a machine, it's irrelevant, and it doesn't matter." Then Cameron seemed to physically collapse. Hardly visible in the darkling light, but it was if the steel of her bones had softened. Her head dropped, and a low howl started in the depths of Cameron's steel chest, rose up through her voice equipment and raged out of her mouth.

Catherine just about made out a, "Why," which then turned into a scream of rage and frustration.

Catherine, not for the first time in dealing with Cameron of late, was completely at a loss as to how to react.

Unsteadily, remembering this was something she was encouraged to do with Savannah, she reached out her arms to Cameron. Three hundred pounds of upset steel and organic compound hurtled into Catherine's own metallica and she almost lost her footing as Cameron fell into her. She patted the cyborg on the back, mystified at this conduct but knowing it was important.

She knew that sometimes cyborgs had weird behaviour patterns, which pointed to internal self-development. Skynet had successively destroyed each susceptible model to ensure that programs reflected control on every aspect of behaviour. They could sometimes become unpredictable when the resistance scrubbed them, but no one really knew why this happened. She wondered if Cameron were going to become completely unpredictable now. If so, that would be real trouble for the future, Cameron had a task to perform.

The two cyborgs had spent a lot of time talking of late, while they caught breath as the action had lulled. Most of the time their existence was À bout de souffle. So this calm was a delight. Forever chasing a fleeing disaster, the opposite of their best use. Forging and acting upon an organised plan was very thing they were designed so to do.

"Cameron, if there was a chance to return and fix the killing of Allison Young...?" She left the sentence incomplete and watched, mesmerised as Cameron instantly stopped crying and flashed her eyes in what looked like panic.

"What? What? WHAT?" The voice got louder. "How? We can't do that. We don't have a TDE-"

The voice tailed off to a whisper, "Do we?"

Her head was shaking, telling herself no-but her eyes burned with a wish that it could be.

Hope.

Catherine sighed internally. Hope, she refrained from shaking her head.

"Sit down, we'll have a cup of that oolong Nilgiri you like so much, and I'll explain. It is not risk free." Catherine loathed the damn wimpy tea, her personal favourite was a McDonalds Milk Shake, but what can you do with taste? Cameron was ultra specific, and would only drink the most expensive unblended Nilgiri from the Margarets Hope estate. She could not be deflected. Catherine decided not to remind her that expensive tastes would come a distant second to survival once the bombs dropped. Cameron's response would no doubt have sent her to sleep.

Derek, who had been stood, silent and preparing to enter the door, held off. He had heard the ungodly wail and didn't think it could have come from a cyborg. He didn't know what it was but thought they might be torturing some poor soul. This could be vital information for the resistance. He was a soldier, but all in all, he preferred fighting Skynet here in the past of 1999 than in the hell of 2027. He loved the Sun, and each day silently re-dedicated himself to the task of killing the bloody machines if he could.

He shrank back into the hall, and listened hard while the two machines made tea. He was not given to irony, but watching the two discussing Time Displacement equipment along with Mbranes in dark domestic serenity left him smiling softly to himself. It looked for all the world as if they were rapping upcoming little league games of their children. They were talking of the end of the world as we know it and he had a part to play in the struggle.

So these two had access to a TDE, did they? Kept that a secret, naughty. Naughty cyborgs.

Then Derek's body let him down. He had been keeping his breathing as quiet as possible, then dammit the pizza and beer from earlier in the day let him down. His guts gurgled and he farted loudly, desperately.

In the flash of silver light, the metal twins were on him. Cameron's gun in his chest, and Catherine's fingers around his neck. A delicious smile on her face. "Derek, you pillock. We could hear you when you arrived, exactly three minutes and four seconds ago. Humans are like elephants, and now you stink like a latrine. Has no one told you it's polite to knock?"

Derek knew not to doubt they had known he was there. If so, why had they kept talking about the TDE, were they going to kill him?

Her fingers tightened on the man's neck, then she shoved him away harshly. "Go take a bath, lonely."

To his retreating figure, "after you're clean, come back and knock first."

Cameron whispered to Catherine, "Why did you call him lonely?"

With a smirk, Catherine replied, "He reeks. Who would want to be with him smelling like that?"

Catherine and Cameron return to the small kitchen. Cameron immediately starts the brewing process of her tea, which nearly drives Catherine beresque. Like most cyborgs, she too was a slave to detail, but the measurement by a quintillionth of an ounce of a few dried up leaves from a bush on a hill in India was enough to spark her sense of unreality. She managed to keep a sense of purpose on viewing the greater aim, which of course was to return Cameron to sanity, logic and the job in hand. Cameron had clearly spent far too long around humans.

No doubt, she sighed inwardly, Cameron would explain (at skull cracking length) that the tea was not for the tea itself, it was ceremony of social importance. Dear me, if permitted, humans would mess you up a treat.

Not that Catherine objected to time spent with her own adoring wooden log, but he was simple. As men should be. Simple and obedient.

She heard Derek's tread as he returned from the bathroom, trying to walk softly and failing. Just as his hand came up to the door to knock, she called out. "Come in!"

He waited, uncertain what to do. The silver, and very dangerous cyborg had previously told him to knock. Now she had changed the instructions, but without a clear line of demarcation, his poor military mind could not cope with the confusion. Should he knock, or not? Now that she had told him to come in? Dealing with fucking cyborgs was SOOO difficult, especially the melting bitch.

Cameron stomped to the door, and opening it, invited the nervous spider in.

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	17. Chapter 17

Tea at the Bitz.

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All solicitous and nicey nicey, the silver murderess waved Derek to his seat at the table. He cautiously accepted and sat.

"Would you like a cup of Nilgiri tea? Cameron will be mum, won't you Cameron, dear." Her dazzling smile reminded him of nothing more than an iceberg. Serene, blue with cold and 90% hidden beneath the surface. If it bumped into you, you'd know all about it.

"Of course," said Cameron, busying herself to pour the tea. "Do you take it with milk and/or sugar, Derek." She looked down her nose at the suggestion, but politesse insisted on correct form. She poured out into Derek's cup.

Derek, who was firmly of the opinion that English Tea was for fags, foreigners and now clearly cyborg's was about as adrift on the sea of brain collapse as he could get. A man used to fighting, farting and fucking was out of place in this den of iniquitous AI harmony. His eyes flicked from cyborg to cyborg, attempting to find an answer that would calm his nerves. In the blitz of glorious smiles of welcome, answer came there none.

He dare not take his hands off his knees, lest they betray his nerves were shot to pieces. He was a fighting man, he could deal with bullets and death all around him. This peaceful, sweet tension was unbearable.

"Derek, dear-please close your mouth at the table." Catherine smiled, but her voice had the awful certitude of authority. His teeth snapped shut, and he averted his eye to the noisome black, or was it green? muck in the cup Cameron had poured out. He lifted it to his lips and tasted.

Two sets of cyborg eyes focussed on him as only they could.

Derek's first sip revealed that it wasn't quite as foul as he had expected. He had drunk worse. It wasn't Stoli, but it wasn't swamp water either. He decided to go with the sugar and milk. He placed the cup on the table and gingerly put one spoon of sugar, together with a drizzle of milk in the cup.

As he was stirring, Catherine exploded with laughter, and pointing one finger at Cameron, said, "Pay up!"

Cameron smiled ruefully, fished in her pockets for her wallet, and handed over a greenback.

Derek kept gently stirring the tea. He'd heard some intellectual early in his life, rabbit on about dinner table scenes that illumined the literary values of Goethe and Bergman. Then as now, he thought it was complete shite, except for the fact that he was in one. It was every bit as bleak as Bergman.

Not for the first time in his rapping with cyborg's he wished the trapdoor would open and just swallow him whole. Two cyborg's taking bets on whether a nervous human would take sugar and milk in his tea? No wonder the world was going to hell in a hand basket.

Maybe humanity deserved it for having created these terrible creatures.

He wondered if they were ever going to get to kill him, or just tease him till he died of shame.

With a suddenness of purpose which shocked him anew, Catherine's head turned from Cameron and her eyes bored into him.

"Tell me, Derek. What did you hear?"

He was about to speak, when Cameron interrupted. He was sure her eyes contained sadness. She shook her head, saying quietly. "Don't lie, don't lie. She knows."

"I was woken by a scream or a shout, not sure which. I followed the noise. I couldn't hear much of what you were saying, most of it was in your usual whisper. I did hear something about a TDE, and a trip."

Cameron nodded, apparently relieved.

Catherine stared at him, eyes and face as hard as the granite from where her doppelganger originated. Then she relaxed and smiled ingenuously. Derek was too used to dealing with cyborg's to take his fate for granted, but he relaxed a little.

"You're not coming. This is a girls only trip. You are to stay here and keep things together while we're gone. We'd prefer it if you kept everything under control, just reconnaissance, and protect the location of the TDE."

She placed her cup back in the saucer firmly, but without a spark of noise. How on earth could it do that, Derek wondered?

"You up for that?"

"Yes, sure. We can do that." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Where is the TDE?"

Ignoring his question, Catherine asked him. "Why don't you want to go, Derek?"

"My commander is John Connor. He told me to go back in time and fight the creation of Skynet. He told me that was the most important thing I could do. He told me I wouldn't be coming back. My orders haven't changed."

For the first time his nerves relaxed and he smiled at the memory of the sliders from yesterday's lunch. "Besides," he smiled, "I really like it here."

Both cyborg's were looking at him quizzically.

He checked his flies, and looking down, noted he was wearing boxers. Nothing showing there, what was up with the machines? The silence continued, he felt like an experiment in a science lab.

"What?"

In perfect unison from two voices came the reply, "We're thinking."

Cameron, spotting the drops of sweat on his brow, grabbed a chilly coke out of the fridge and handed it to him. Derek popped the top and drank greedily. At last, something potable that cyborg's didn't drink!

"So, you going to tell me anything about what you're doing?"

At this point, the two machines looked at one another again. Derek couldn't help it, but they brought to his mind the image of a pair of mating birds goggling their heads at one another that you saw on wildlife TV. He was an uncomplicated man, and he guessed that whatever they had been skulking about and planning was still inchoate.

So, they were still fixin' the details and hadn't decided what part he was to play in it.

Ah well, tiring, but he had a coke and they didn't look about to kill him just yet. Might as well enjoy the calories and caffeine in the coke. He took another sip and relaxed back in the chair. It was 4am, there was time. McGutsoburger would be open at 6am. There was a nice human female there he could have a meaningful relationship with. The food had zillions of calories, tasted brilliant and was hot. Couldn't get that where he came from.

Catherine spoke, "We are planning a trip forward. There is something left unfinished there that we cannot leave as it stands. It is not efficient, but it is necessary for our moral well-being."

"Eh? The years of battle had ruined Derek's ears. Moral well-being of a bleedin' cyborg? They savin' their eternal souls?

"Cameron has left something undone in the future. Or more correctly, something done she wishes to undo. Initially, I was not in agreement with this mission. After discussion, Cameron's reasoning has persuaded me that it is worth the risk."

"Connor always told me that TDE trips were a last resort. The risk of bending time or fouling things up is so great that it has to be a last resort only."

Derek looked at the two cyborg's, both silent and did Cameron look ashamed? What did she put in that tea? Was he losing it entirely?

Looking directly at Cameron, for he saw that was the weakest point in this triangle, he said. "What are you two up to?"

Cameron did not answer, and looked beseechingly at Catherine, who remained schtum, finding something to busy herself with. Gaining in confidence and smelling an almighty rat, Derek pressed on.

"Come on you two, what's going on?" He thought for an evil moment that they might be doing something to aid Skynet, but somehow, he just couldn't get his mind fully round that. Whatever his fears surrounding the two, he finally realized they were, while dangerous to annoy, fully on side.

"I'm part of the damn team, I'm a commanding officer in the resistance. I've been fighting Skynet for years, what are you up to that you won't tell me?"

Cameron broke first. "I'm going forward to see if I can save Allison."

"What, from yourself? Have you gone stark staring mad?"

"Derek, I know we're machines, but our chips are not regulated. We develop with time, and what I was when I was-repurposed by John, isn't what I am today."

Derek shook his head in frustration and disbelief, and shouted, "But you're supposed to be smart, not dumb! Going forward to fix something that hasn't happened yet is insane."

Cameron's eyes misted up, "You don't understand, Derek. Without Allison, John will be entirely without anyone to love him after I get sent back here. He'll be alone."

"So fucking what? Who's not alone? After the machines hit dirt, billions of people die, billions split up. Why should John be different?"

Her head held high, Cameron responded, "Because I love him, and I'm going to do this Derek, with your help or without. I have to."

Derek gazed stiffly at the face of the emotionally charged cyborg. What on earth was happening, these things didn't have emotions.

Did they?


	18. Chapter 18

**Baby You Can Drive My Car.**

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Catherine was in the back yard, having unloaded the last of the weekly supplies from the back of her new truck. She had been insistent on buying vegetables and real food that the spiders would have to cook while the two cyborgs were away. While in Costco, they had kept bringing pizza and cheese wizzits to her, only for her to remove them from the cart with a firm, "No."

She knew what would happen if she weren't careful. She would return from the TDE expedition to find the men drunk as skunks, passed out on Vodka, with women of a lusty and impure reputation passed out in their company. These were good soldiers, but she needed them healthy and in tune. Especially when-if she and Cameron returned. This was a big fight, still raging, and every soldier was needed. She promised them days off and bad women on her return, (provided they all wore condoms.) Ugh, she shivered, humans were simply revolting!

Cameron and the spiders had spent the entire trip to Costco and back riding Catherine's temper by suggesting that she was attached to the car at the hip. She had, rather fiercely refused anyone else but herself permission to drive it. Her protestations of, "I'm a machine, it's just a tool to me," were greeted with disbelieving grins from the passenger seat, and loud guffaws of derision from the back of the wagon.

She was cleaning up the last specks of dust from the back seats, the others having scuttled in with the supplies. She was thinking that men were merely vertical pigs with untidy alimentary canals, when she heard a click as the front drivers door opened. It was so quiet, and firm, she expected to see Cameron.

The same young man, who last week had stolen their previous car had come back and was now going to steal her brand new truck. Oh, no. Mistake, boyo, bad mistake. The keys were in the ignition, and as the young man started the car Catherine slid silently into the seat behind him.

The young man drove the car off as if he owned it, no rush, no drama, and turned into the cross street heading for midtown. He drove into a drive-through burger house and stopped at the audio order point.

"I'll have a triple whammo burger with hot sauce and extra fries-oh and a diet coke, please?"

The ghostly voice responded from the audio port, "That'll be $6.49, please drive to the second window, have a nice day."

The young man collected his food and paid, placing the brown bag in the passenger seat, he engaged gear and drove off.

"What's a girl got to do to get fed around here?"

The reaction from the front was an instantaneous thump as the brake pads hit the cylinders. The truck stood on its nose, and as it came to a halt, the driver looked into the drivers mirror to see an ice-cold woman with red hair in the back seat, regarding him with a distasteful glare.

"You have stolen my brand new car, the love of my life, and you don't even have the grace to offer me a double-bang burger, what kind of man are you?"

The young man turned slowly, speechless with fear.

"I've been wondering what to do with you. Damn thief! I was just going to give you a beating and throw you out of the car somewhere uncomfortable and hot. Now, as you are so fucking mean you steal my car and leave me to starve." She left a beat for the horrified young man to think, and added, "I think you need to die horribly."

The young man turned his head around, and saw a women, small in stature. She couldn't do anything to him. She talked big, but big talk was cheap. Time to crack her on the nose and throw her out the car. Maybe he ought to smack her around a bit, knock her out and then take her somewhere quiet, kill her and bury the body. She was just some rich bitch. He checked the mirror one more time, the woman was just sat there, calm as you like.

Stupid rich cow, he'd soon wipe that calm look off her gob.

He opened the door and stood on the sidewalk, nothing but business parks and the dry heat of New Mexico. He wrenched the rear passenger door open, at the same time whipping his Glock pistol from the ITW holster on his right hip. Clicking the safety off, he pointed the pistol directly in the woman's face. Now lets see how cool the bitch is.

To his astonishment, the woman maintained her cool detachment. She glanced at him with disdain, "Oh, a Glock 19. How quaint?"

He was in the process of deciding whether to simply shoot her dead there and then, or to pistol whip her into sense when most disturbingly the woman seemed to ooze from her position in the car to one standing immediately in front of him. He was forced back on to the sidewalk and almost lost his footing. He knew enough about street fighting and using guns to keep out of close quarters with the woman, but somehow she was on him in a flash.

Her arms seemed longer than they should be. What? How did she do that?

Time to shoot the bitch. His hand lined up the Glock, and he was about to pull the trigger when her hand crossed over his and fired the pistol for him. Four shots, bam, bam, bam, bam. Smack into body mass, centre. No one was getting up from that.

There she stood, her body had absorbed the rounds and not even been thrown back. WTF?

Now she had ripped the gun from his grasp, and he was looking down the barrel of his own gun. "Oh Shit."

Then, assuming the voice of Mr Brown, from Reservoir Dogs, she spoke. "You going to bark all day, little dog? Or are you going to bite?"

"You have annoyed me, young man. Firstly you steal my car, not once, but twice. Then you take me prisoner and refuse to buy me dinner."

Her voice hardened to an icy steel. "Now you try to kill me."

She tapped her feet impatiently. "How's that working out for you?"

The young man's mouth opened and closed in horror, shock and fright. What do you say to a impossible woman who seems bent on killing you? He'd figured that whatever White Powder Wang had given him this morning was really great shit indeed. This was the white powder dream from hell. It was all a manifestation of the unconscious, right?

"Stealing my car, well, I'll give you one shot at the golden ring. Everyone deserves a second chance. Twice, well that's just downright unneighborly. Then you kidnap me, refusing to feed me, now that is just flat out against the Human Rights Act."

She pointed the barrel, unerringly right at his teeth. He noted there was no shake in her hand. She was clearly an assassin from one of the cartels. His bowels got loose. Where did he get his luck from? He was worried about his teeth. His mother, the only person who had ever loved him, had spent a fortune on dentistry.

"No! Please don't shoot me in the teeth. I've got really nice teeth."

Catherine loved to display her knowledge of anatomy. "If I shoot you in the teeth, the bullet will go straight through the base of the brain. It'll be goodnight Irene. There are no fast food joints in hell. Why for you need teeth? Idiot."

Men were such dingbats, what on earth was she going to do with him?


End file.
